Sheila Nirenberg

Sheila Nirenberg is an American neuroscientist and professor at Weill Cornell Medical College. She works in the field of neural coding, developing new kinds of prosthetic devices that can communicate directly with the brain,[2] and new kinds of smart robots.[3] She is a recipient of a MacArthur “genius” award[4][5] and has been the subject of, or featured in, several documentaries for her technology for treating blindness.[6][7][8]

Sheila Nirenberg
Alma materSUNY Albany
Harvard University
AwardsMacArthur Award, Beckman Young Investigators Award,[1] TED Talk, NYC BioAccelerate Prize
Scientific career
FieldsNeuroscience
InstitutionsCornell University
Websitephysiology.med.cornell.edu/faculty/nirenberg/lab/
External video
video icon ”Sheila Nirenberg, Can we speak the language of the brain?”, TEDMED, 2011
video icon “Sheila Nirenberg - Q&A”, TEDMED, 2011
video icon ”MacArthur Fellows Program, Sheila Nirenberg”, MacArthur Foundation, 2013

She is currently the Nanette Laitman Professor in Neurology and Neuroscience and a professor of Computational Neuroscience in the Institute for Computational Biomedicine at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University.[9][10] Additionally, she is the founder of two startup companies, Bionic Sight LLC (prosthetic devices)[11] and Nirenberg Neuroscience LLC (smart robots, AI).[12]

Early life and education

Nirenberg grew up in Westchester, New York, United States. She obtained her bachelor's degree from the State University of New York at Albany and her doctorate from Harvard Medical School.[13][14] She worked with Constance Cepko, a neurobiologist who was studying development and degeneration of the vertebrate retina.[13][15] Nirenberg's project focused on developing a new technique to eliminate specific interneuron cell types in order to understand fundamentally how neural circuits work.[13]

Research career

Nirenberg stayed at Harvard University for her postdoctoral work, working in computational neuroscience, then joined the faculty in the Department of Neurobiology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).[13] She was then recruited to Cornell Medical School (Weill Cornell Medicine), where she is now a full professor [13][16] A few years later, she was able to decipher the retina's neural code [17] This discovery allowed her to develop a new treatment for blindness. The treatment bypasses damaged retinal cells and directly communicates visual information through the optic nerve to the brain.[17] Nirenberg has published her research in journals such as Nature, PNAS, Neuron, and PLoS One.[15] Her company, Bionic Sight, LLC (https://www.bionicsightllc.com/) is currently running a clinical trial to bring the treatment forward to blind patients (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT04278131).

Awards and honors
  • Bressler Prize, 2022 for Outstanding Accomplishments in Vision Science
  • Barbara McClintock Women Innovator Award, 2022
  • Crain's Notable Women in Tech, 2019[18]
  • MacArthur Award, 2013[15]
  • Beckman Young Investigators Award[19]
  • Klingenstein Fellowship, 1998[20]
  • Frontiers of Science Award[19]
  • Stein Oppenheimer Award[19]

References
  1. Guerrero, Russell (March 21, 2014). "Talking to the brain in its own language". Trinity University. Retrieved 1 August 2018.
  2. Brumfiel, Geoff (13 August 2012). "Prosthetic retina helps to restore sight in mice". Nature. doi:10.1038/nature.2012.11164. S2CID 87951998. Retrieved 1 August 2018.
  3. "Sheila Nirenberg Going from scientist to entrepreneur: things that are useful to know". IEEE SMC 2017. October 6, 2017. Retrieved 1 August 2018.
  4. Benson, Barbara. "New Yorker trying cure blindness wins 'genius' prize". crainsnewyork.com.
  5. Lee, Felicia R. (24 September 2013). "24 Recipients of MacArthur 'Genius' Awards Named". The New York Times.
  6. "The code that may treat blindness". BBC News. 12 November 2014.
  7. Grobart, Sam; Jeffries, Alan (5 April 2016). "This Bionic Eye Could Cure Blindness". Bloomberg.
  8. "Sight - The Story of Vision". storyofsight.com.
  9. "Nirenberg Lab Website". Cornell University.
  10. "Sheila Nirenberg, Ph.D. – Weill Cornell Medicine – Department of Physiology and Biophysics". Retrieved 2020-09-13.
  11. Mullin, Emily (February 15, 2017). "Companies Plan Tests of "Optogenetic Goggles" to Restore Sight". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 1 August 2018.
  12. "Homepage". Nirenberg Neruoscience, LLC.
  13. Talan, Jamie (2013-11-07). "BEHIND THE BENCH: What MacArthur Awardee Sheila Nirenberg Is Doing to Help Blind People See". Neurology Today. 13 (21): 24. doi:10.1097/01.NT.0000438149.22688.f0. ISSN 1533-7006.
  14. "UAlbany Psychology Department Alumna Awarded Prestigious MacArthur Fellowship for Pioneering Work in Neuroscience - College of Arts & Sciences - University at Albany-SUNY". www.albany.edu. Retrieved 2020-03-22.
  15. "Sheila Nirenberg - MacArthur Foundation". www.macfound.org. Retrieved 2020-09-13.
  16. "Nirenberg, Sheila". vivo.med.cornell.edu. Retrieved 2020-09-13.
  17. Salerno, Heather (2017-03-07). "Seeing is Believing". Cornell Alumni Magazine. Retrieved 2020-09-13.
  18. "Notable Women in Technology - Sheila Nirenberg, Ph.D." Crain's New York Business. 2019-05-01. Retrieved 2021-09-13.
  19. "Sheila Nirenberg". World Science Festival. Retrieved 2020-09-13.
  20. "The Esther A. & and Joseph Klingenstein Fund, Inc". www.klingfund.org. Retrieved 2020-09-13.
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