Harvard Neurobiology Professor to Deliver Mount St. Mary's University SPARC Festival Keynote

Emmitsburg, MD (04/24/2017) — David Ginty, Ph.D., the Edward R. and Anne G. Lefler Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, will give the keynote lecture for the Mount St. Mary's University SPARC Festival.

SPARC, an acronym for scholarship, performance, art, research and creativity, is a campus-wide celebration of academic and artistic accomplishments of Mount students, which will take place on Tuesday, April 25 and Wednesday, April 26.

"We are incredibly grateful to Dr. Ginty for sharing his wealth and breadth of knowledge with us," says Mount St. Mary's University Interim President Timothy Trainor, Ph.D. "As a prominent figure in the field of neurobiology and a Mount St. Mary's graduate, Dr. Ginty's work and message set a fantastic example for our students in their academic pursuits, both now and in the future. It is exactly what the SPARC Festival is all about."

Ginty has worked for more than two decades to unravel the mysteries of peripheral nervous system (PNS) organization and development. His research is currently focused on understanding the development and functional organization of neural circuits that underlie the sense of touch, and the cellular and circuit basis of touch and pain sensations. Ginty is also interested in the cellular and molecular basis of touch and pain sensations under disease conditions.

Ginty's talk, "How do we feel? An exploration of the sensory neurons of touch," will focus on what happens when symphonic ensembles of neural impulses flow from our skin to our brains to convey tactile encounters with the physical world. "Our ability to perceive and respond to the physical world is rooted in the cadre of intricate nerve cell endings in our skin, the largest and least understood of our sensory organs," says Ginty.

Currently, Ginty is an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (since 2000), an associate editor for the scientific journal Neuron (since 2003), and the associate director for the Harvard University Program in Neuroscience (since 2015). Previously, he served as a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore from 2004-13. In 1989, Ginty graduated with a doctorate in physiology from East Carolina University School of Medicine, and a bachelor's degree in biology from Mount Saint Mary's College in 1984. Mount St. Mary's became a university in 2004.

The SPARC Festival will also feature talks by Mount students and faculty, including a new "FIRE" talk format for faculty in a more condensed timeframe. Topics include business, science, history, foreign language, psychology, computer science and many others.

Date, time and more information

The SPARC Festival will take place on Tuesday, April 25 and Wednesday, April 26 at Mount St. Mary's University. The event is open to the public. The honored faculty address will be held on Wednesday, April 26 at 11:45 a.m., with the keynote lecture to follow at 4:45 p.m. Both lectures may be live streamed at msmary.edu/livestream. For more information on SPARC or for a full schedule of events please visit msmary.edu/sparc.