Jim Olds, Director
Professional Biography of James L. Olds
Jim Olds received his bachelors of arts degree in Chemistry from Amherst College in 1978. After graduating, Olds interned on Capitol Hill for the United States House of Representatives researching chemical aspects of mid-future electrical energy alternatives for the New England Congressional delegation whose members at the time included such leaders as Speaker "Tip" O'Neill, Paul Tsongas, Edward Markey and Silvio Conte.
Olds entered the Neuroscience Ph.D. program at the University of Michigan in 1983, and received his Ph.D. (1987) in neurosciences from that institution. His thesis advisor was Bernard W. Agranoff, the Director of the Neuroscience Laboratory and the Mental Health Research Institute at the University of Michigan Medical Center.
Following the award of his doctorate, Dr. Olds continued his training as a post-doctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology (LMCN), NINDS at the National Institutes of Health. Laboratory Chiefs of LMCN included, among others, Dr. J. Craig Venter and Dr. Daniel L. Alkon. Commencing in 1989, Olds published a series of papers which, for the first time, imaged learning-specific changes in the distribution of the activated form of the enzyme protein kinase C in the brains of both invertebrates and mammals. For this work and follow-up studies, Dr. Olds received the NIH award of merit in 1993. In 1994 Dr. Olds was appointed as a senior staff fellow in the newly formed Laboratory of Adaptive Systems (LAS), NINDS. During this period of time Dr. Olds founded the internet news group "bionet.neurosciences". Thousands of articles have been posted to this internet news group from all over the world. Dr. Olds shares authorship of two U.S. Patents for novel CCD-based imaging devices which image radioligand distributions directly from biological tissue.
During his government service, Dr. Olds also served as U.S. project officer on two successive government R&D contracts to develop novel biologically-based computer algorithms which emulate human associative learning and image comprehension. Total expenditures on these efforts totaled approximately 1.2 million dollars over six years and led to the issuance of two U.S. patents along with over 20 peer reviewed publications. Routinely, as part of his duties, Dr. Olds briefed senior members of the U.S. intelligence and military communities.
Dr. Olds also has had a close affiliation with the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole Massachusetts since 1978. In 1991 Dr. Olds was elected a member of the MBL Corporation and served on the MBL computer advisory committee from that time through 2002. In 1994, Dr. Olds led a team of MBL summer investigators which, for the first time, imaged the activation of protein kinase C in living sea urchin eggs following fertilization using laser-scanning confocal microscopy. In 1995 Dr. Olds moved to the private sector to become the Executive Director of the American Association of Anatomists, a professional scientific society representing some 2,500 biomedical scientists. During his tenure, membership and participation in the Society's annual meeting grew significantly. He was also responsible for creating the Association's web site and using it to reinvigorate the Society's public affairs presence.
In summer of 1998, Olds departed the Association to accept the position of Director and CEO at the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, an independent research institution located on the campus of George Mason University in Fairfax Virginia. Following the Institute’s merger with George Mason University in 2002, Olds remained as Director. Concurrently he is the Shelley Krasnow University Professor of Neuroscience at George Mason University and on the Krasnow Institute Faculty in Molecular Neuroscience. He has an additional academic faculty appointment at the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda Maryland. In August 2004, he was named editor-in-chief of the journal Biological Bulletin for a 5-year term.
In a volunteer role, Olds served as a political appointee on the Commonwealth Alzheimer's and Related Diseases Commission from 1998-2004 under both Republican and Democratic governors. Dr. Olds has served on grant review panels for the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research. He served on the American Association of Anatomist's Public Affairs Committee from 1995-2002. Dr. Olds also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Cognitive Dynamics. As a scientist and public policy expert Dr. Olds has been an invited speaker to many domestic and international meetings to speak on topics ranging from brain imaging to global warming. Dr. Olds is also a member of the Cosmos Club. In 2004, he began a 3-year term on the Board of Directors of Americans for Medical Progress where he served as Treasurer.
Dr. Olds' research is directed toward understanding and simulating the
molecular mechanisms that permit neurons and neuronal assemblies to store
and recall memories, both under normal and pathological conditions. To
this end novel computerized imaging and simulation techniques have been
developed that have, with ever increasing spatial and temporal resolution,
revealed emergent characteristics of nerve cell ensembles as they interact
to store and recall memories. His longer-range objective is to further
develop these strategies in order to sufficiently increase the spatial
and temporal resolution of the imagery so as to reveal three-dimensional
structure and maps of mnemonic function in both animal and human brains
in close to real-time. As delineated in over 35 publications in print
or in review, the critical role of protein kinase C in the molecular chain
of events that lead to associative learning has been exploited by using
labeled phorbol ester as a probe for membrane-associated, or activated
protein kinase C in animals that have undergone various behavioral paradigms
designed to assess learning. From such "memory maps", principles
have been extrapolated to allow complex qualitative simulations of large
modular regions of the mammalian nervous system such as the cerebellum
and hippocampus.
(06-25-08)