Glia Guru

Ben Barres recast glial cells from supporting actors to star performers, crucial for synaptic plasticity in the brain and for preventing neurodegenerative disorders.

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BEN BARRES
Professor of Neurobiology Stanford University School of Medicine Member of Stanford Neurosciences Institute
STANFORD PRESS OFFICE
In his first two years of graduate school, Ben Barres (then Barbara Barres) was a neuroscience graduate student by day and a neurologist on nights and weekends. He began his PhD at Harvard Medical School in 1983 after completing full medical training: an MD from Dartmouth Medical School followed by four years of a neurology-focused residency at Cornell University hospitals in New York City.

“When I started graduate school, all of my medical school loans came due. I had to start paying them back, but my graduate-student stipend was $6,000—barely enough to live on. So I started to moonlight as a neurologist. I was covering a neurology practice at a local hospital, seeing patients and covering emergencies Friday night to Monday morning. On Monday mornings I would drag myself to the lab. It was very hard to take courses, be in the lab, and to work as a neurologist. After about two years, I came in Monday morning and my advisor saw how bad I looked and asked why I was doing this to myself. I told him that I had loans to pay and couldn’t on my stipend ...

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Meet the Author

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    Anna Azvolinsky

    Anna Azvolinsky is a freelance science writer based in New York City.

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