David W. Tank is an American

molecular biologist Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...

and

neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, Biological neural network, n ...

who is the Henry L. Hillman Professor in Molecular Biology at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

and the co-director of the

Princeton Neuroscience Institute The Princeton Neuroscience Institute (PNI) is a center for neuroscience research at Princeton University. Founded in the spring of 2004, the PNI serves as a "stimulus for teaching and research in neuroscience and related fields" and "places particu ...

along with psychology professor Jonathan Cohen.

Education and academic career

Tank received his bachelor's degree from

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...

in 1976 and his Ph.D. from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

in 1983, both in

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

. After finishing his Ph.D., Tank became a researcher at

Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

; from 1991 to his departure in 2001, he served as the director of the Biological Computing Research Department. Tank joined the faculty at Princeton in 2001. He and Jonathan Cohen became the founding co-directors of the

when it opened in 2006. Tank was elected a fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

in 1990, a fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 2000, and a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

in 2001. He received the

Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Prize The Brain Prize, formerly known as The Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Prize, is an international scientific award honouring "one or more scientists who have distinguished themselves by an outstanding contribution to neuroscience and who are ...

- often known as the Brain Prize - in 2015, along with

Winfried Denk Winfried Denk (born November 12, 1957 in Munich) is a German physicist. He built the first two-photon microscope while he was a graduate student (and briefly a postdoc) in Watt W. Webb's lab at Cornell University, in 1989. Early life and educa ...

Arthur Konnerth Arthur Konnerth (born 23 September 1953) is a German neurophysiologist, the Hertie Senior Professor of Neuroscience at the Technical University of Munich. Academic career Konnerth received a degree in medicine from Ludwig Maximilian University ...

, and Karel Svoboda. Also in 2015, Tank was awarded the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

's Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize.

Research

While at Bell Labs, Tank was involved in the development of

functional MRI Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled. When an area o ...

imaging technology; with

Seiji Ogawa Seiji Ogawa (小川誠二 ''Ogawa Seiji'', born January 19, 1934) is a Japanese biophysicist and neuroscientist known for discovering the technique that underlies Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). He is regarded as the father of moder ...

and others, the team published a series of papers first establishing the

BOLD signal Blood-oxygen-level-dependent imaging, or BOLD-contrast imaging, is a method used in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to observe different areas of the brain or other organs, which are found to be active at any given time. Theory N ...

method of measuring brain activity. Tank's research interests at Princeton have recently focused on the physical mechanisms of

neural circuit A neural circuit is a population of neurons interconnected by synapses to carry out a specific function when activated. Neural circuits interconnect to one another to form large scale brain networks. Biological neural networks have inspired the ...

dynamics, particularly those that underlie

short-term memory Short-term memory (or "primary" or "active memory") is the capacity for holding a small amount of information in an active, readily available state for a short interval. For example, short-term memory holds a phone number that has just been recit ...

of motor activity in

animal model An animal model (short for animal disease model) is a living, non-human, often genetic-engineered animal used during the research and investigation of human disease, for the purpose of better understanding the disease process without the risk of ha ...

s. The group also develops laboratory methods and technologies in

microscopy Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view objects and areas of objects that cannot be seen with the naked eye (objects that are not within the resolution range of the normal eye). There are three well-known branches of micr ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tank, David W. American neuroscientists American molecular biologists Case Western Reserve University alumni Cornell University alumni Princeton University faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Living people Year of birth missing (living people)