Developing brains utilize a limited number of molecules to specify connection specificity of a much larger number of neurons and synapses. How is this feat achieved? In this talk, I will first discuss our work using the Drosophila olfactory circuit as a model to address this question. I will then discuss analogous functions of some of the wiring molecules we identified in the fly olfactory circuits also in determining wiring specificity of complex circuits in the mammalian brain, focusing on the hippocampal network.

Dr. Luo is currently the Ann and Bill Swindells Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, Professor of Biology, and Professor of Neurobiology by courtesy at Stanford University, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He earned his bachelor’s degree in molecular biology from the University of Science and Technology of China. After obtaining his PhD in Brandeis University, and postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Luo started his own lab in the Department of Biology, Stanford University in December 1996. Together with his postdoctoral fellows and graduate students, Dr. Luo studies how neural circuits are organized to perform specific functions in adults, and how they are assembled during development.