A new fellowship program will honor the legacy and memory of Ronald S. Duman, PhD (1954-2020), a renowned neuroscientist at Yale School of Medicine whose work transformed our understanding of how antidepressants work.
The Ronald S. Duman Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship in Molecular Psychiatry will be awarded annually to support research positions for recent college graduates in molecular psychiatry research labs at Yale.
The 2024 recipient is Emi Krishnamurthy. Emi received her Bachelor of Science degree in neuroscience from Haverford College and is planning to pursue a PhD in neuroscience following her fellowship at Yale.
She was selected for the fellowship based on her advanced technical skills in computational neuroscience and her records of accomplishment, engagement, and social/leadership skills. She will work in the lab of Alfred Kaye, MD, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry.
Research in the Kaye lab uses systems neuroscience approaches to examine microcircuit mechanisms of threat perception, with the goal of increasing our understanding of the neurocircuitry of stress and trauma-related disorders.
For her fellowship work, Emi will continue a project she started in the Kaye lab last summer developing a novel virtual reality system for mice along with a customized code to synchronize virtual reality experiences to calcium imaging recording.
Duman, together with another transformative scientist, Eric Nestler, MD, PhD, who is now at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, launched the Laboratory of Molecular Psychiatry at Yale over 30 years ago, which at the time was one of the first research programs in the world to focus on the molecular and cellular biology of psychiatric disorders.
Duman’s work shed light on the mechanisms through which psychological stress produces detrimental effects on brain structure and how antidepressant treatments restore the brain’s capacity for resilience and reverse the detrimental structural changes produced by stress.
Duman was a highly productive and respected scientist and valued role model and mentor who influenced the paths of both colleagues and trainees. The fellowship honors these aspects of his legacy by supporting promising young scientists interested in career paths in molecular psychiatry.
Duman passed away in 2020 at the age of 65, yet his career continues to be an inspiration for young people entering the field of psychiatric neuroscience.