Kazuo Murakami is the director of a research team on mind/heart and genes and an emeritus professor at the University of Tsukuba (Applied biochemistry) in Japan. He was educated at Kyoto University in Japan, where he received his BA and PhD in biochemistry. His professional fields are 1) biochemistry, molecular biology of cardiovascular disease; and 2) the relationship between mind and genes. Professor Murakami has also written more than 400 chapters and journal articles in the above fields. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his work including the Max Plank Research Award (Humboldt Foundation, Germany ) and the Japan Academy Prize (Japan Academy). He has proposed a hypothesis on the interaction between mind/heart and genes and is focusing on the relationship between positive emotion and gene regulation.

Michael J. Meaney is James McGill Professor of Medicine at Douglas Hospital Research Centre of McGill University. He is the Director of the Maternal Adversity, Vulnerability and Neurodevelopment Project and of the Developmental Neuroendocrinology Laboratory of McGill University. Dr. Meaney was educated at Loyola College of Montreal and received his PhD from Concordia University (Montreal) with post-doctoral training at The Rockefeller University in New York. Over this period Dr. Meaney’s primary research interest was on the effects of early experience on gene expression and development.

His research is multidisciplinary and includes studies of behaviour and physiology, to molecular biology and genetics. The primary objective of these studies is to define the processes that govern gene environment interactions. He has authored over 225 journal articles and has been the recipient of a Scientist Award from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) and a Distinguished Scientist Award from the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders. He currently holds a CIHR Senior Scientist Award. Graduates from Dr. Meaney’s lab hold faculty appointments across North America and Europe, including Queen’s University, University of California at Berkeley, University of British Columbia, University of Michigan, and the RIKEN Institute. Research in the Meaney lab is funded by grants from Canadian, American and Japanese agencies.

Fred H. Gage is Adler Professor in the Laboratory of Genetics at Salk Institute. He joined The Salk Institute in 1995. Prior to that he held positions as the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Lund, Sweden. He received his PhD in 1976 from The Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Gage’s work concentrates on the adult central nervous system and unexpected structural plasticity that the brain retains throughout the life of all mammals. Surprisingly, this structural plasticity is regulated by experience; thus his studies also focus on the cellular, molecular, and environmental influences that regulate structural changes in the adult and aged brain.

He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Gage also served as president of the Society for Neuroscience in 2002. Dr. Gage has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the 1993 Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievements in Health and Education, the Christopher Reeve Research Medal in 1997, the 1999 Max Planck Research Prize, and the MetLife Award in 2002.