Rajiv Ratan

Rajiv Ratan
Born July, 1960
Pittsburgh Pennsylvania
Occupation Author, researcher, professor, administrator
Spouse(s) Rini Ratan
Academic work
Doctoral students Kuo-I Lin, Stephen McConoughey, Rachel Speer

Rajiv Ratan is an Indian American academic, professor, administrator and scientist based in New York City. He is the Burke Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at Weill Medical College. Since 2003, he has served as the Executive Director of Burke Medical Research Institute and as a member of the Council of Affiliated Deans of Weill Cornell Medicine.[1]

Ratan's scientific efforts have been primarily focused on understanding how neurons respond to physiological stresses, particularly oxidative stress, adaptively and maladaptively at a transcriptional level, and how the balance of these activities leads to neuronal death and impairment, or cell survival and recovery or resistance. During his career, he has published over 135 articles and has edited and contributed chapters to several books. He has received research grants from National Institutes of Health, The New York Department of Health, Dana Foundation and The Thomas Hartman Foundation among other international foundations. Ratan's studies have identified novel transcriptional and epigenetic strategies for limiting neuronal cell death which have identified novel small molecule approach which have been validated in numerous neurological disease models.[2]

Early life and education

Ratan was born in July 1960 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His parents immigrated from India in the late 1950s. He attended the Webb School of California where he graduated with Honors in 1977.[3] He completed his BA in Neuroscience from Amherst College in 1981 graduating magna cum laude and received the John Woodruff Simpson Fellowship in Medicine. At Amherst College, he completed an Honors thesis on the role of the cerebellum in regulating nuclei associated with emotion in the cerebrum. He later completed his M.D. and Ph.D. from the New York University School of Medicine in 1988 where he was named to the medical honor society, Alpha Omega Alpha.[4]

Ratan's Ph.D. work was done with Michael Shelanski and Fred Maxfield and focused on novel methods to monitor calcium dynamically in living cells. After the completion of his NIH funded Medical Scientist Training Program Fellowship at NYU in 1988, he completed an Internship in Medicine at the University of Chicago Hospitals and Clinics and later became the Chief Resident in Neurology at Johns Hopkins Hospital. At Johns Hopkins, he received the Jay Slotkin Award for excellence in research. From 1992 to 1994, he was a clinical fellow in Neurorehabilitation funded by a NIH training award and a research fellow in the Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins where he developed novel data related to programmed cell death and disease with Jay Baraban and Tim Murphy. These studies catalysed his career interest in dysregulated cell deaths and their roles in neurological disease, particularly recovery from neurological injury.[5]

Career

After completing his fellowship at Johns Hopkins, he was promoted to Assistant Professor in Physical Medicine, Rehabilitation and Neurology. Simultaneously, he started working as Attending Staff at John Hopkins and at The Good Samaritan Hospital. He was recruited to Harvard Medical School as Assistant Professor in Neurology in 1996. The same year, he joined the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as Attending Neurologist and Youville Hospital as Consultant in Neurorehabilitation. At Harvard, he set up the Neuroprotection Laboratory in the Department of Neurology and he joined the Program in Neuroscience as well as the Center for NeuroDiscovery in Neurodegeneration. He taught a course in the New Pathway and a seminar course on Transcriptional Mechanisms of Neuronal Death and Survival in Program in Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Harvard. He became an Associate Professor at Harvard in 1999 and taught there until 2004.[3][6]

Ratan joined the Burke Medical Research Institute in 2003 as its second Director succeeding Fletcher McDowell and was formally appointed the Winifred Masterson Burke Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at Weill Medical College in 2004. He was named an Associate Dean (affiliate) of the college in 2010.[4]

Ratan is a member of the Sigma Xi, American Academy of Neurology, American Neurological Association, the Society for Neuroscience, American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, the American Society for Neurorehabilitation and New York Academy of Sciences. He has been on the editorial board of several journals including serving as a Reviewing Editor at The Journal of Neuroscience for 6 years, Senior Associate Editor at Neurotherapeutics, Associate Editor at the Journal of Huntington's disease, and Editorial Boards for Antioxidants and Redox Signaling and Neurobiology of Disease in addition to several other journals.[2]

Research and writing

The central focus of the Ratan laboratory's work is to understand adaptive programs that facilitate the brain's ability to combat injury and to foster repair. In 1994, he set up his own research lab with the help of his post-doctoral advisor, Jay Baraban. His studies have explained fundamental mechanisms by which oxidative stress triggers the inappropriate demise of neurons and accordingly his molecular and pharmacological studies have had an impact in a number of disease models including stroke, spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury and Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's disease. His lab has developed novel strategies for manipulating reactive oxygen species, specifically peroxide in the nervous system.[7]

Ratan has spent considerable time evaluating and caring for patients who are in need of rehabilitation at the neurology ward at Good Samaritan Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. In his research, he has worked with undergraduates, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows and has taught a seminar course at Harvard Medical School on the "Transcriptional regulation of survival and death in neurons". His studies have identified novel strategies for limiting neuronal apoptosis and potential markers for antioxidant treatment in the central nervous system.[8]

During his career, Ratan has published over 130 articles and has contributed chapters to several books. He co-edited the 1999 book Cell Death and Diseases of the Nervous System and wrote two chapters in it. The book became widely known and used in the field.[9][10] It was reviewed by Acta Neurologica Belgicathat that wrote "this volume broadly covers the field of neuronal death, and the large number of (mostly) up to date references make this a very useful textbook. Being written and edited by authorities in the field, it can be strongly recommended."[11] In a review of the book, Trends in Neuroscience wrote "overall, this is a sound book with well-recognized authors whose expertise spans the field of neurodegenerative disorders.[12]

In 2004, he co-edited Current Atherosclerosis Reports (Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke) with John Blass and in 2008, he co-edited Mitochondria and Oxidative Stress in Neurodegenerative Disorders with Gary Gibson and Flint Beal.[13]

Administration, committee work, and meetings

In 2003, Ratan was selected among a pool of applicants via a national search to Direct the Burke Medical Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine. At that time, the Institute was a leader in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's research. From 2003-2016, Ratan lead a large scale recruitment of repair focused scientists at Burke from laboratories around the world.[14] These recruitment were associated with significant renovation of facilities within the research institute. Accordingly, the focus of research at Burke expanded to include vision recovery, motor recovery, pain and sensory recovery and cognitive recovery and represent one of the largest bench to bedside efforts focused on spinal and brain repair in the world.[2]

Ratan has been the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Partnership in Stroke Recovery in Canada; he has served on NIH Study Sections; and he Co-Chaired the Gordon Conference on Oxidative Stress in Ventura, California in March 2015. In collaboration with Mark Noble and Marie Filbin, he was principal investigator of an eleven institution Center of Research Excellence in Spinal Cord Injury funded via a $15 million from the New York State Department of Health.[15]

Awards

Partial bibliography

Books

Chapters

References

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