Penn Comprehensive Neuroscience Center

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• History of Neurosciences

Administration

The Penn CNC is optimally organized to integrate clinical care, research, and education.

• The Penn CNC is led by two Co-Directors, one from a clinical department (Francisco Gonzalez-Scarano, MD, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurology) and one from a basic science department (Amita Sehgal, PhD, John Herr Musser Professor of Neuroscience, HHMI Investigator, and Vice Chair of the Department of Neuroscience). 

• The Penn CNC Co-Directors both report directly to the Dean of the School of Medicine and to the CEO of the University of Pennsylvania Health System. This strengthens the position of the Center within the larger institution and ensures that the Penn CNC has a voice at the highest levels of the School of Medicine and Health System.

• The Executive Director of the Penn CNC is Rosellen Taraborrelli, who also serves as Chief Administrative and Financial Officer of the Department of Psychiatry, which has acclaimed programs in clinical care, research, and education.

• The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Neuroscience Steering Group provides administrative and programmatic advice and oversight for the Penn CNC.  It includes leaders from Penn’s neuroscience community, ensuring that a broad group of perspectives are represented from the Departments of Anesthesiology & Critical Care, Neurology, Neuroscience, Neurosurgery, Otorhinolaryngology: Head & Neck Surgery, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, and Psychiatry.  

Institutional and Programmatic Goals

The Penn CNC has multiple programmatic goals in several mission areas.  Building on a long tradition of interdisciplinary thinking, the Center is designed to create an integrated and collaborative organizational framework for Penn departments, centers, institutes, and programs in the neurosciences.

Biosketches

Francisco Gonzalez-Scarano, MD
Dr. González-Scarano is a nationally recognized expert in HIV neuropathogenesis as well as in other aspects of neurovirology and brain inflammation. He has been and is the principal investigator of several NIH grants, including a program project centering on the biology of HIV infection of the brain, and of training grants in neurovirology and in the scientific development of students from underrepresented minorities.  He has held many roles in national organizations, is the author of over 155 publications in neurovirology, AIDS, and Multiple Sclerosis, and is co-editor of two books. Between 1993 and 1997 he was the Chairman of the Board of Scientific Councilors of the NINDS; before and since he has served on several NIH and Multiple Sclerosis Society study sections. He was on the Council of the American Neurological Association in 2001-2003, currently chairs its Scientific Program Committee, and previously was a member of the American Academy of Neurology's Scientific Program Committee. He is a member of the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council (2004-2008). In addition to his clinical work in Multiple Sclerosis and his laboratory activities, he is on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Virology, Virology, Virus Research, the Journal of Neurovirology, and Glia, and edits a section of the electronic textbook Up-to-Date.

Amita Sehgal, PhD
During Dr. Sehgal’s career, she has received numerous awards and honors.  In 1997, she was selected through the first nationwide search of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) for an appointment in this institute and currently remains an HHMI Investigator.  At Penn she has received the Michael S Brown Junior faculty Research Award (in 1997) as well as the Stanley Cohen Senior Faculty Research Award from Penn (in 2006).  Dr. Sehgal has served in editorial positions for several journals.  Currently, she is an Associate Editor of  the Journal of Neuroscience as well as the Journal of Clinical Investigation, and serves on the editorial board of the Nature and Science of Sleep.  Dr. Sehgal has served as a member of many NIH committees, including the review panels for Pioneer and New Innovative Investigator awards.

Amita Sehgal's goal is to understand the molecular basis of behavior. Her studies are directed, in part, towards understanding the endogenous mechanisms that confer a circadian (~24-hour) periodicity on many behaviors and physiological processes. Her research is also focused on the regulation and function of sleep, which is controlled by the circadian clock and also by a homeostatic process which drives the need to sleep.

Using largely the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model system, Sehgal’s laboratory is employing genetic approaches to address fundamental questions regarding the endogenous circadian clock.  They seek to determine how, on a molecular level, the endogenous clock is generated, how it synchronizes to light, and how it interacts with various body systems to drive rhythms of behavior and physiology. To understand the homeostatic system that controls sleep, they are mapping brain regions required for sleep and wake, identifying genes that affect sleep and testing candidate hypotheses for the function of sleep.

Rosellen Taraborrelli
Rosellen Taraborrelli serves as the Executive Director of the PENN Comprehensive Neuroscience Center. She is a long standing member of the Penn community. She also serves as Chief Operating Officer of the Department of Psychiatry and Penn Behavioral Health at the University of Pennsylvania where she has served in this position for more than 14 years. Rosellen serves as the Executive Director of PENN Behavioral Health Corporate Services, which manages the behavioral health benefits for the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Pennsylvania Health System. It also provides Employee Assistance and Management Assistance programs and training to 60 companies.

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