AUGUST 2024 NEWS

Dear Friends,

It was a privilege to welcome more than 400 attendees to our iconic Courtyard earlier this month for my favorite night of the summer—Symphony at Salk. This year’s concert under the stars showcased the talented San Diego Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sean O’Loughlin and presented by Zenith-level sponsors Ann Tsukamoto-Weissman and Irv Weissman. The night also featured exciting performances by guest artists David Foster and Katharine McPhee and special guest Daniel Emmet.

In addition to enjoying the musical entertainment, it was fun to see attendees immersed in a multimedia experience that celebrated Salk’s Unlocking Healthy Aging Initiative. If you didn’t get to experience it in person, this preview video will give you a feel for what it was like to be in the Courtyard that night, and you’ll also find more photos below.

Symphony at Salk is a unique event that brings together the two worlds of science and art, each enriching the other and helping us develop a deeper understanding of ourselves and our world. We are grateful to our many visionary supporters who share Salk’s appreciation for the arts and sciences. Please save the date for the 29th annual Symphony at Salk on August 16, 2025!

Warmest regards,

Gerald Joyce

Salk Institute President

New insights show some age-related retinal disease is reversible

Our bodies rely on little molecules called amino acids—aptly nicknamed the building blocks of life—that come together to form proteins and carry out bodily functions like digesting, growing, repairing, and so much more. Maintaining a constant supply of these important amino acids requires participation from the liver, kidneys, and circulatory system. But for people with an age-related retinal disease like macular telangiectasia, important amino acids like serine and glycine are depleted. New research from Professor Christian Metallo, visiting PhD student Esther Lim, Salk colleagues, and collaborators at Lowy Medical Research Institute and Scripps Research has revealed how a partial genetic deletion in an important metabolic enzyme (PHGDH, pictured above) leads to lower levels of circulating serine, and how this contributes to dysfunction between the visual and neural systems. Importantly, they show that dietary serine supplementation can reverse serine-associated retinopathy and peripheral neuropathies.

PUBLICATIONS

Meet a Salk scientist

In the new monthly video series “From Then to When,” we bring you the unique stories of Salk researchers, from their personal journeys into science to their motivations and goals for the future.

“I grew up in a small town in Minnesota called Rochester. It happens to be the home of the Mayo Clinic, but it is a very small town,” recalls Pfaff. “I had an interesting mix of sort of rural exposure and academic exposure in the sense that my grandparents were farmers and almost all my relatives were farmers and dairy farmers, and my parents had grown up on farms, but my father worked at the Mayo Clinic. And every weekend, every holiday, every summer break, I went to my grandparents’ farm. But the other part of my life was that all my neighbors were either engineers or surgeons.”

From driving tractors and milking cows to pipetting solutions and genetic testing, Sam Pfaff has had quite the journey to Salk. Now a professor and holder of the Benjamin H. Lewis Chair at Salk, Pfaff studies molecular and developmental biology—both of which were very new fields when he first started studying them in graduate school. He looks at the circuitry that controls bodily movement and is a leader in the study of motor neurons. Learn more about his life and research in this episode of “From Then to When.”

Salk's podcast Beyond Lab Walls

Join hosts Isabella Davis and Nicole Mlynaryk on a journey behind the scenes at the Salk Institute, delving into the captivating realms of neuroscience, plant biology, cancer research, and more. The Institute’s new podcast immerses listeners in the fascinating world of science while showcasing the brilliant minds and dedicated staff who drive its discoveries.

This month’s episode of Beyond Lab Walls features Jesse Dixon, an assistant professor who was recently named a 2024 Pew Biomedical Scholar, a prestigious honor for early career faculty whose work shows outstanding promise in advancing human health. Learn how his lab pairs molecular tools with artificial intelligence to explore what happens when our genome gets folded incorrectly, and how that can lead to diseases like cancer.

Also find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.

Salk Streaming

Our scientists have received a lot of recognition this year—lifetime achievement awards, inductions into honor societies, promotions, research funding, and more. Witness firsthand the world-renowned researchers at Salk in the Salk Streaming “Public Lectures” category, where they give talks explaining their cutting-edge scientific discoveries.

Salk Streaming is the Salk Institute’s new media channel, which—in addition to public lecture videos—hosts architecture videos, faculty profiles, podcast episodes, scientific discovery explainers, and many more videos to keep you excited and informed about today’s frontiers of science.

Salk Institute mourns the loss of Rebecca Newman, former vice president

Newman, who served as the Institute’s vice president of External Relations from 2008 to 2022, died on August 3, 2024. For 14 years, Newman led Salk’s fundraising efforts, including strategic planning and campaigns, donor relations, events, and communications.

“Rebecca brought style and substance to her role as vice president. She was an icon in the local philanthropic community who did much to strengthen Salk’s groundbreaking scientific research programs,” says Salk President Gerald Joyce.

Read more »

Salk awarded $3.6 million by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to advance research on brain aging

The state agency dedicated a total of $27 million to establish six new Shared Resources Laboratories designed to foster collaboration among California researchers. Salk Professor Rusty Gage will lead the new Shared Resources Laboratory at Salk, which will train other scientists to use his state-of-the-art stem cell-based models of aging and neurodegeneration. This initiative will help accelerate the discovery of new therapies, biomarkers, and drug candidates for age-related diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Read more »

Salk Science Network enables trailblazing research collaborations with swift data transfers

Salk Science Network (SciNET) is a new state-of-the-art, high-speed network that enhances scientific data transfer between research collaborators. This offering is the latest advancement enabled by Salk’s Biocomputation Initiative, which aims to provide the funding, technology, and expertise required to address the challenges posed by increasingly data-intensive research in biological sciences, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Read more »

Salk Professor Rusty Gage awarded 2024 Taylor International Prize in Medicine

Given by the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry and the Robarts Research Institute at Western University, the prize is one of the most prestigious medical research awards in Canada. This year’s prize specifically honors a leader in aging-related medical science and research—a long-term focus of Gage and his lab. Gage will receive $50,000 and be celebrated at a Robarts Research Institute event in November.

Read more »

Natanella Illouz-Eliaz wins 2024 Women’s Postdoctoral Career Development Award in Science

A postdoctoral researcher in Professor Joseph Ecker's lab, Illouz-Eliaz is this year's recipient of the Weizmann Institute of Science award. The program "supports Israeli women scientists during their postdoctoral training at leading institutions and laboratories abroad at a crucial stage in their career development." Illouz-Eliaz will receive career coaching and $70,000 over two years.

Read more »

Salk welcomed high school, undergraduate, and graduate summer students

Each summer, Salk welcomes students from high school to doctoral programs to campus, where they gain experience and insight into careers in the biomedical sciences.

Founded over 30 years ago, Salk’s Heithoff-Brody High School Summer Scholars program provides the opportunity for local high school students to explore how a scientific powerhouse like Salk is run—from benchwork in the lab to communicating discoveries. This year’s cohort included Imane Elidrissi, Samira Seendripu, Eric Xie, Muhamed Ridha, Lillian O’Shaughnessy, Nila Mehta, Amina Aslam-Mir, Sophie Chin, Danielle Dee, Adina Olsen, and Arnav Dagar.

Salk Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) is a 10-week mentored research program, which aims to broaden access to summer research experiences to students who otherwise would not be able to travel to and stay at a world-renowned facility like Salk. This year’s cohort included Mhyraquel Quinto, Trissania Lawrence, Jackson Baldis, Gloria Grama, Ayden Clark-Veal, Lola Schettini, Natalie Trautt, Odinakachukwu Agubuzo, Mya Bailey, and Arthur Mayo III.

Spearheaded by Assistant Professor Christina Towers, Salk EDGE is a two-week summer program designed to support diversity in science. The program helps prepare PhD students from across the country for top postdoctoral research positions by training them to use cutting-edge laboratory techniques that may not be available at their home institutions. This year’s cohort included Jessica Johnson, Clara Flores, Eric Stokes, Kathy Lindquist, Hayden Moore, Zoila Estrada-Tobar, Liliana Loza Sanches, and Kofi Khamit-Kush.

SYMPHONY AT SALK

This year’s artists for the 28th annual Symphony at Salk were David Foster, 16-time Grammy Award^®–winning musician, composer, and producer, and Katharine McPhee, acclaimed singer and television/Broadway star. The powerhouse duo, along with the San Diego Symphony, put on a stellar performance and marked an unforgettable night on August 17. Thank you to each and every attendee and donor that make Symphony a spectacular event year after year—we hope to see you all in 2025!

INSIDE SALK

Sign up for our mailing list to receive Inside Salk Fall 2024 as soon as it’s released. In the fall edition of Inside Salk, we focus on the innovative and interdisciplinary Alzheimer’s research happening at Salk. As a continuation of our “Year of Healthy Aging,” the magazine features the past, present, and future direction of Salk’s Alzheimer’s research, hearing the latest ideas from biologists, neuroscientists, immunologists, and more. We also share stories about other Salk scientists, celebrate the awards and discoveries made this season, and honor the tremendous work of philanthropist Joan Jacobs. Read Inside Salk online or join our mailing list to receive print editions of the magazine. 

Looking for a unique background image for your computer, Zoom meeting, iPad, phone, or watch?

This summer, Salk’s campus has welcomed many new faces, from the youngest cohort in the Heithoff-Brody High School Summer Scholars Program, to undergraduate students in our SURF Program, to graduate researchers preparing for postdoctoral positions in our EDGE Program, to so many more.

These summer programs, which aim to inspire and uplift the next generation of scientists, are just one way we uphold Jonas Salk’s profound statement, “Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.”

Learn more about research and training opportunities at Salk »

Phone: (858) 453-4100

Email: communications@salk.edu

Media inquiries: press@salk.edu

Website: www.salk.edu