Gerald Fischbach

Gerald David Fischbach (born November 15, 1938) is an American neuroscientist. He received his M.D. from the Weill Cornell Medicine in 1965 before beginning his research career at the National Institutes of Health in 1966, where his research focused on the mechanisms of neuromuscular junctions. After his tenure at the National Institutes of Health, Fischbach was a professor at Harvard Medical School from 1972 to 1981 and from 1990 to 1998 and the Washington University School of Medicine from 1981 to 1990. In 1998, he was named the director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke before becoming the Vice President and Dean of the Health and Biomedical Sciences, the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, and the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Columbia University from 2001 to 2006. Fischbach is married to Ruth L. Fischbach, who currently serves as a Professor of Bioethics in Psychiatry at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. They have four children. Much of Fischbach's research concentrated on the mechanisms controlling action potentials and synapses, from which he pioneered the use of neuron and muscle cell culture to study neuromuscular junctions. Fischbach used this technique to reconstruct neuromuscular junctions from dissociated spinal cord and muscle cells from chick embryos to show that functional synaptic connections reformed and were capable of sending spontaneous or induced action potentials. However, cultures containing isolated spinal cord cells were unable to send similar action potentials. This technique proved to be an important model for further studies to determine the essential mechanisms controlling neuromuscular junction development and maintenance.

Harvard University 1973–1981, 1990–1998 After his time at the National Institutes of Health, Fischbach obtained a position as an associate professor at Harvard Medical School's Department of Pharmacology in 1973. By 1978 he obtained tenure and became a full professor, and continued teaching at Harvard University for the next three years. After a nine-year stint at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, he returned to Harvard to serve as the Nathan Marsh Pusey Professor of Neurobiology and Chairman of the Neurobiology Departments of both Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital from 1990 to 1998. Later on he continued his research on ARIA that he started at the National Institutes of Health, specifically focusing on the expression of the protein's isoforms and their effects on tyrosine kinases. In 1993, Fischbach was involved with the founding of the Mind, Brain, Behavior Institute. This inter-disciplinary program aims to research the different structures, evolution, and development of the nervous system in order to better understand human behavior.

Washington University School of Medicine 1981–1990 Gerald Fischbach spent nine years at the Washington University School of Medicine, where he served as the Edison Professor of Neurobiology and Head of the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology.

In addition to his ARIA work, Fischbach also researched rapid desensitization of glutamate receptors in chicken spinal cord and rat hippocampal neurons. Using focal ionophoresis and pressure injections to apply glutamate and other agonists including NMDA, AMPA, and kainate to different regions of the neurons, he noticed that certain hot spots were desensitized more rapidly that other sites on the neuron. Fischbach and his collaborators hypothesized that these hot spots may be located at synapses between neurons, where clusters of glutamate receptors were present.

Epidermal growth factor domain of heregulin alpha, a member of the neuregulin family.

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke 1998–2001 Fischbach returned to the NIH in 1998 when he was named director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a division of the NIH that supports research on the brain and nervous system. While he was director, Fischbach oversaw a staff of more than 700 and an annual budget of about $800 million.

Columbia University 2001–2006 After serving as the Director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institute of Health, Gerald Fischbach was selected as the Vice President and Dean of the Health and Biomedical Sciences, the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, and the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Columbia University. He served as the Dean for all three branches simultaneously. Fischbach was interviewed in 2001 by the newspaper for Columbia University Health Sciences, and there he stated that the mission of the University was "to use all its resources to reduce the burden of human disease." He explained that this required interdisciplinary and collaborative work with the other departments and resources at Columbia University. The Health and Biomedical Sciences division at Columbia University includes the School of Nursing, the Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health, the School of Dental Medicine, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the Audubon Business and Technology Center. The Audubon Center is the only research park that is affiliated with a university in New York City and holds the only incubator for business related to biotechnology.

The research Fischbach conducted at Columbia University stemmed from his previous work at Harvard University, Washington University and with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institute of Health. The specialized focus of his research was on the influence trophic factors could have on the survival of nerve cells and the efficiency of synapses. After his arrival to Columbia, Fischbach was focused on the expression of neuregulin in regards to neuromuscular synapses, signaling pathways in the brain, transcription factors, as well as work on autism. His research on Neuregulin-1 revealed a possible function in CNS neurogenesis since the neuregulins were labeled throughout proliferation with an anti-MAP2 antibody and an anti-nestin antibody were suggested to have become neuron-restricted progenitors. Some of his other research examined the relationship between neuregulin and expression of myosin heavy chain and transcription factors in human muscle. The research found that treatment including neuregulin increased the number of acetylcholine receptors on the surface of the myotube as well as an increase in the early growth response family for transcription factors. These findings impact the available knowledge regarding muscle spindle fiber formation, myosin heavy chains development, and the feasibility of mimicking muscle development processes in vitro. As scientific director, Fischbach collaborates with mathematicians, engineers, chemists, and neuroscientists to try and understand autism more completely. Currently, Fischbach oversees research focusing on the neurobiology of autism and how it can relate to finding a possible cure.

Honors and publications

Awards and honors Fischbach has received the following awards: 1990 Elected to the Institute of Medicine 1991 Elected to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts 1998 Foundation Ipsen Neuronal Plasticity Prize 2000 Dr. Nathan Davis Award 2003 Parkinson's Disease Foundation Honor for Contributions 2003 Appointed to the Council for Foreign Relations 2003 Elected to the American Philosophical Society 2004 Maroon Citation (Colgate University)

Selected publications Fischbach has authored or co-authored over a hundred papers on his research work, which according to the Web of Science have been cited over 10,000 times, giving him an h-index of 57. Some selected publications are:

Mann MA, Knipe DM, Fischbach GD, Fields BN (2002). "Type 3 reovirus neuroinvation after intramuscular inoculation: direct invasion of nerve terminals and age-dependent pathogenesis". Virology. 303 (2): 222–31. Jacobson C, Duggan D, and Fischbach G, (2004). "Neuregulin induces the expression of transcription factors and myosin heavy chains typical of muscle spindles in cultured human muscle". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 101 (33): 12218–12223.

Liu Y, Ford B, Mann M, Fischbach G, (2005). "Neuregulin-1 increases the proliferation of neuronal progenitors from embryonic neural stem cells". Developmental Biology. 283 (2): 437–445. Fischbach G, and Lord, C, (2010). "The Simons Simplex Collection: A Resource for Identification of Autism Genetic Risk Factors". Neuron. 68 (2): 192–195.