Tim Behrens's guest appearances

Tim Behrens

People Behind the Science Podcast - Stories from Scientists about Science, Life, Research, and Science Careers

Brain Inspired

Kanaka Rajan

Rodrigo Quian Quiroga

David Rosen

Stuart Firestein

Michael Levin

Ryan Poplin

Blake Richards

Terrence Sejnowski

David Ferrucci

Ayanna Howard

Sarah Bergbreiter

Lawrence Krauss

Raia Hadsell

Nathan Smith

Katie Mack

OwlTail

Dr. Tim Behrens is Senior Vice President of Human Genetics at the biotech company Maze Therapeutics and Adjunct Professor of Medicine in Rheumatology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. In his research, Tim is working to apply lessons and insights from human genetics to develop new drugs for different diseases. For example, Tim and the team at Maze Therapeutics are working on developing a drug that activates the immune system in new ways to fight cancer. Tim is an avid outdoors enthusiast, so he loves spending his free time canoeing, fishing, and going on wilderness trips. He also enjoys spending time playing the guitar, hanging out with his wife and two children, and playing fetch with the family dogs. Tim received his B.S. in biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his M.D. from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in Rheumatology/Immunology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Afterwards, Tim worked as an emergency room physician at Brookfield Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin for about a year before accepting a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Tim joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1992, and he worked there until 2006 when he accepted the position of Senior Director and Head of the Department of Human Genetics at Genentech, Inc. After over a decade at Genentech, Tim became an independent consultant and later accepted his current position at Maze Therapeutics.Tim has received numerous awards and honors over the course of his career, including recognition for one of the Top 10 Advances in Rheumatology in 2003 and 2004 by the Arthritis Foundation, being named the John F. Finn Arthritis Foundation Land Grant Endowed Chair at the University of Minnesota Medical School, as well as receipt of the Edmund L. Dubois Memorial Award for Research in Lupus from the American College of Rheumatology, the Leukemia &amp; Lymphoma Society Scholar Award, the Feltl Family Award for Research in Rheumatic Disease, and other honors. In our interview, Tim shares more about his life and science.

Dr. Tim Behrens is Senior Vice President of Human Genetics at the biotech company Maze Therapeutics and Adjunct Professor of Medicine in Rheumatology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. In his research, Tim is working to apply lessons and insights from human genetics to develop new drugs for different diseases. For example, Tim and the team at Maze Therapeutics are working on developing a drug that activates the immune system in new ways to fight cancer. Tim is an avid outdoors enthusiast, so he loves spending his free time canoeing, fishing, and going on wilderness trips. He also enjoys spending time playing the guitar, hanging out with his wife and two children, and playing fetch with the family dogs. Tim received his B.S. in biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his M.D. from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in Rheumatology/Immunology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Afterwards, Tim worked as an emergency room physician at Brookfield Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin for about a year before accepting a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Tim joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1992, and he worked there until 2006 when he accepted the position of Senior Director and Head of the Department of Human Genetics at Genentech, Inc. After over a decade at Genentech, Tim became an independent consultant and later accepted his current position at Maze Therapeutics.Tim has received numerous awards and honors over the course of his career, including recognition for one of the Top 10 Advances in Rheumatology in 2003 and 2004 by the Arthritis Foundation, being named the John F. Finn Arthritis Foundation Land Grant Endowed Chair at the University of Minnesota Medical School, as well as receipt of the Edmund L. Dubois Memorial Award for Research in Lupus from the American College of Rheumatology, the Leukemia &amp; Lymphoma Society Scholar Award, the Feltl Family Award for Research in Rheumatic Disease, and other honors. In our interview, Tim shares more about his life and science.

551: Applying Insights from Human Genetics to Create New Cancer Therapies - Dr. Tim Behrens

Show notes: This is the first in a series of episodes where I interview keynote speakers at the upcoming Cognitive Computational Neuroscience conference in September in Berlin. Thomas Naseralis summarizes the origins and vision of the CCN. Tim’s Neuroscience homepage: The papers we discuss: Generalisation of structural knowledge in the hippocampal-entorhinal system (referred to in the podcast at "The Tolman Eichenbaum Machine”) Human replay spontaneously reorganizes experience. (In press at Cell - below is an abstract for it from COSYNE 2018) Inference in replay through factorized representations. 

Show notes: <ul><li>This is the first in a series of episodes where I interview keynote speakers at the upcoming <a href="https://ccneuro.org/2019/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Cognitive Computational Neuroscience conference</a> in September in Berlin. <ul><li>Thomas Naseralis <a href="https://youtu.be/OFEq5Pzt5R8" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">summarizes the origins and vision</a> of the CCN. </li></ul></li><li>Tim’s <a href="https://www.ndcn.ox.ac.uk/team/timothy-behrens" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Neuroscience homepage</a>: </li><li>The papers we discuss: <ul><li><a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.09042%0A" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Generalisation of structural knowledge in the hippocampal-entorhinal system</a> (referred to in the podcast at "The Tolman Eichenbaum Machine”) </li></ul></li><li>Human replay spontaneously reorganizes experience. (In press at Cell - below is an abstract for it from COSYNE 2018) <ul><li><a href="https://users.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/~behrens/Cosyne2019/Liu_Cosyne19.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Inference in replay through factorized representations</a>. </li></ul></li></ul>

BI 035 Tim Behrens: Abstracting & Generalizing Knowledge, & Human Replay

Show notes: Tim’s Neuroscience homepage: Follow Tim on Twitter: @behrenstim. Edward Tolman’s cognitive maps work:  Cognitive maps in rats and men.   Place Cells and Grid Cells: O’Keefe early place cell paper: The Hippocampus as a Spatial Map. O’Keefe’s book about the work: The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map. Mosers and their students discover grid cells: Microstructure of a spatial map in the entorhinal cortex.  Overview.   Here’s a good talk Tim gives on the subject: Building models of the world for behavioural control. Tim's papers we discuss:  What is a cognitive map? (Neuron, 2018)  Organizing conceptual knowledge in humans with a grid-like code (Science, 2016)   Two of the books he recommended:  Theoretical Neuroscience by Dayan and Abbott.  Information Theory, Inference and Learning Algorithms by David MacKay.  

Show notes: <ul> <li> Tim’s <a href="https://www.ndcn.ox.ac.uk/team/timothy-behrens" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Neuroscience homepage</a>:</li> <li>Follow Tim on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/behrenstimb" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@behrenstim</a>.</li> <li> Edward Tolman’s cognitive maps work: <ul> <li> <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fh0061626" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Cognitive maps in rats and men</a>.</li> </ul> </li> <li> Place Cells and Grid Cells: <ul> <li> O’Keefe early place cell paper: <a href="http://www.utdallas.edu/~tres/spatial/OKeefe1.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Hippocampus as a Spatial Map</a>.</li> <li> O’Keefe’s book about the work: <a href="https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/academic/class/15883-f15/slides/hc-place-cells.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map</a>.</li> <li> Mosers and their students discover grid cells: <a href="http://www.its.caltech.edu/~bi250c/2012/papers/hafting_05.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Microstructure of a spatial map in the entorhinal cortex</a>.</li> <li> <a href="http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Grid_cells" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Overview</a>.</li> </ul> </li> <li> Here’s a good talk Tim gives on the subject: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5tZJLFokYY" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Building models of the world for behavioural control.</a></li> <li> Tim's papers we discuss: <ul> <li> <a href="https://www.cell.com/neuron/pdf/S0896-6273(18)30856-0.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">What is a cognitive map?</a> (Neuron, 2018)</li> <li> <a href="http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10043572/1/0.merged_final.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Organizing conceptual knowledge in humans with a grid-like code</a> (Science, 2016)</li> </ul> </li> <li> Two of the books he recommended: <ul> <li> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262541858/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=pmiddlebroo09-20&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;creativeASIN=0262541858&amp;linkId=d1325290c00f07789b4e18f55a042c94" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Theoretical Neuroscience</a> by Dayan and Abbott.</li> <li> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521642981/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0521642981&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=pmiddlebrooks-20&amp;linkId=cdd740f26bf799987a6eafb44ba7655c" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Information Theory, Inference and Learning Algorithms</a> by David MacKay.</li> </ul> </li></ul>