Dec 16, 2020
By Mark Golden
Yi Cui, a preeminent researcher of nanotechnologies for better batteries and other sustainability technologies, as well as an educator and entrepreneur, will become the next director of Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy. Yi Cui, Stanford materials science professor and incoming director of the Precourt Institute for Energy. (Credit: Feng Pan)
Cui, professor in Stanford’s Department of Materials Science & Engineering and professor of photon science at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, takes over the helm from co-directors Sally Benson and Arun Majumdar. Cui, one of the world’s most cited scientists, will begin his new appointment on January 1. In 2008 he showed that silicon nanowires can significantly boost the performance of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. This triggered global interest in nanotechnology for energy storage and resulted in his founding of the startup Amprius Inc. Cui and the large group of student
New tool for watching and controlling neural activity
A new molecular probe from Stanford University could help reveal how our brains think and remember. This tool, called Fast Light and Calcium-Regulated Expression or FLiCRE (pronounced “flicker”), can be sent inside any cell to perform a variety of research tasks, including tagging, recording and controlling cellular functions.
“This work gets at a central goal of neuroscience: How do you find the system of neurons that underlie a thought or cognitive process? Neuroscientists have been wanting this type of tool for a long time,” said Alice Ting, professor of genetics in the Stanford School of Medicine and of biology in the School of Humanities and sciences, whose team co-led this work with the lab of Stanford psychiatrist and bioengineer, Karl Deisseroth.
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A new molecular probe from Stanford University could help reveal how our brains think and remember. This tool, called Fast Light and Calcium-Regulated Expression or FLiCRE (pronounced flicker ), can be sent inside any cell to perform a variety of research tasks, including tagging, recording and controlling cellular functions. This work gets at a central goal of neuroscience: How do you find the system of neurons that underlie a thought or cognitive process? Neuroscientists have been wanting this type of tool for a long time, said Alice Ting, professor of genetics in the Stanford School of Medicine and of biology in the School of Humanities and sciences, whose team co-led this work with the lab of Stanford psychiatrist and bioengineer, Karl Deisseroth.
Neuroscientists have to choose between seeing the entire brain in low resolution or seeing a small piece of it in high resolution but a new technique known as FLARE could bring that dream one step closer to reality.
Whereas existing tagging techniques require hours to activate, the FLiCRE tagging process takes just minutes. The researchers also designed FLiCRE so that they can use standard genetic sequencing to find the cells in which FLiCRE activated. This allows them to study tens of thousands of cells at once, while other techniques tend to require the analysis of multiple microscopic images that each contain hundreds of cells.