Jacobs in NYC

In cooperation with the German Center for Research and Innovation (GCRI), Jacobs University will host an exclusive talk and discussion evening at the German House in New York on October 13. Nobel Prize laureate Prof. Dr. Eric R. Kandel, Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Columbia University, and Prof. Dr. Ursula Staudinger, Jacobs University Vice President and Dean of the Jacobs Center for Lifelong Learning, will deliver lectures at the event. The subject of the evening is ‘The Aging Brain'.

October 10, 2011

Prof. Dr. Eric Kandel, who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2000, will discuss his research regarding the nature of learning and brain plasticity, plasticity in the young and age-related memory loss in the elderly.

Prof. Dr. Ursula Staudinger will describe her research on the continuous interaction between biology and culture and its impact on cognition using empirical examples of the impressive human brain plasticity.

“We have to readjust what we thought we knew about the adult brain," says Prof. Dr. Staudinger. "We were able to show, for instance, that through an aerobic fitness intervention - three times a week for 40 minutes - older adults (above age 60) were able to significantly increase their speed of information processing and their brain physiology became more efficient. Areas of the brain that show age-related declines were reactivated."

A discussion with the audience will follow the lectures moderated by Dr. György Buzsáki, Professor of Neuroscience and member of the Board of Govenors at Rutger University in New Jersey.

The opening address will be held by Busso von Alvensleben, Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany in New York.

More than 80 invited guests are expected to attend the event, which is aimed at postdoc and graduate students, researchers, professors and deans from the New York area who are interested in conducting research in Germany. Representatives from the fields of industry and policy as well as members of NGOs and non-profit organizations have also been invited.

For Jacobs University, Dr. Antonia Gohr, Director of Academic Affairs, was instrumental in organizing the event working in close cooperation with the GCRI. “This is the first time Jacobs University is involved in an event at the GCRI. The evening is a fantastic opportunity to showcase our research in the field of lifespan developmental psychology. We hope there will be many more opportunities for other fruitful collaborations with the GCRI in the future.”

In the 18 months since its opening in February 2010, the GCRI, located on the sixth floor of the German House at UN Plaza, has welcomed a number of distinguished guests from the world of politics and science including two Nobel laureates - Prof. Wolfgang Ketterle and Dr. Bert Sakmann.

Among the dignitaries who visited the GCRI were Germany's Federal Minister of Research and Education, Prof. Dr. Annette Schavan and the German Ambassador to the United States, Dr. Klaus Scharioth, as well as the Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office Cornelia Pieper; the chairwoman of the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment of the German Parliament, Ulla Burchardt, and her colleague Kai Gehring as well as German Parliament member Thomas Oppermann.