Ian R. Wickersham, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
McGovern Institute for Brain Research
MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
46 Vassar Street, Office: 46-6023
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
Phone: 617-447-6566
Email: wickersham@mit.edu
Social media: LinkedIn / ResearchGate / Google Scholar / PubMed / Twitter
Short Biography
Ian received a bachelor’s degree in Physics from Duke University, a master’s degree in Cognitive Neuroscience from Dartmouth College (thesis advisor: Michael S. Gazzaniga), and a Ph.D. in Neurosciences from the University of California, San Diego, doing his thesis work in the laboratory of Ed Callaway at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. In his Ph.D. work, he and his colleagues introduced the use of recombinant rabies virus as a tool for neuroscience and also originated the paradigm of monosynaptic tracing, meaning the use of a genetically modified viral vector to identify neurons directly connected to a targeted neuronal population. He came to MIT in 2007 for a postdoc in the laboratory of Sebastian Seung, where he continued the development of viral tracing tools for connectomic applications, followed by a brief interlude as a research scientist in the laboratory of Ed Boyden working on automatic patch-clamp physiology with the esteemed inventor of the Autopatcher, Suhasa Kodandaramaiah. He started the Genetic Neuroengineering Group at MIT in 2013.
Additional Information
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Principal Research Scientist, July 2015 – Present
Head, Genetic Neuroengineering Group, Sep 2013 – Present
Research scientist, Sep 2013 – Present
Research scientist, Principal investigator: Edward S. Boyden, Sep 2012 – Sep 2013
Senior postdoctoral fellow, Principal investigator: Edward S. Boyden, Apr 2012 – Aug 2012
Postdoctoral fellow, Principal investigator: H. Sebastian Seung, Sep 2007 – Mar 2012
Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA
Postdoctoral associate, Principal investigator: Edward M. Callaway, Jun 2006 – Sep 2007
University of California, San Diego, CA
Ph.D., Neurosciences, Advisor: Edward M. Callaway, Jun 2006
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
M.S., Cognitive Neuroscience, Sep 2006
Duke University, Durham, NC
B.S., Physics, May 1992
Compositions and methods for monosynaptic transport,
Wickersham, I.R., J.A.T. Young & E.M. Calloway,
U.S. Patent No. 8,334,095, 2012
Tissue slicing device,
Wickersham, I.R.,
Provisional application, 2001
BRAIN Initiative award: NIMH U01, “Anterograde monosynaptic tracing.”
PI: Ian Wickersham. Co-PIs: Guoping Feng & Lynn Enquist.
Total costs: $2.16M / Duration: 2015 – 2018
BRAIN Initiative award: NIMH U01, “Novel technologies for nontoxic transsynaptic tracing.”
PI: Ian Wickersham. Co-PIs: Robert Desimone, Li-Huei Tsai, & Kay Tye.
Total costs: $2.3M / Duration: 2014 – 2017
BRAIN Initiative award: NSF EAGER, “Cell-type-specific optogenetics in wild-type animals.”
PI: Ian Wickersham. Co-PIs: Robert Desimone, Li-Huei Tsai, & Kay Tye.
Total costs: $300K / Duration: 2014 – 2016
BRAIN Initiative award: NINDS U01, “Cortical circuits and information flow during memory-guided perceptual decisions.”
PI: Mriganka Sur. Co-PIs: Ian Wickersham, Kwanghun Chung, & Emery Brown.
Total costs: $2.5M / Duration: 2014 – 2017
BRAIN Initiative Investigators Meeting
Invited speaker, 2015
BRAIN Initiative Investigators Meeting
Invited panelist, 2015
NeuroElectronics Research Flanders
Symposium speaker, Neurotechnology Symposium,
Leuven, Belgium, 2014
Simons Center for the Social Brain Seed Grant Award, 2013 – 2014
Society for Neuroscience
Symposium speaker, Mini-Symposium on “Neocortical Projection Neurons: New Insights into Cortical Function and Dysfunction”
Annual Meeting for the Society for Neuroscience
New Orleans, LA, 2012
McGovern Institute Neurotechnology Award, 2011 – 2012
Current Opinion in Neurobiology
Invited review, 2012
Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind Innovative Research Award, 2007 – 2008
GRE Scores: 800Q/800A/800V, 1998
National Merit Scholarship, 1988 – 1992
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