Dr. Tal Iram

Dr. Iram earned her PhD in neuroscience Tel Aviv University. As part of her work, she spent two years as a visiting student at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. There, she studied astrocytes, cells that clear debris from the brain. Her work has implications for our understanding of the role of these cells in Alzheimer’s disease.

At Stanford, Dr. Iram plans to work with mice, trying to understand how normal molecular changes occurring with age alter the activity of adult neural stem populations. This could potentially lay the ground for manipulating adult neurogenesis to overcome, and possibly prevent, aging-related cognitive decline. Her project stems from findings showing that circulatory factors in the blood of young mice can increase neurogenesis, spatial learning, and memory in old mice, but Dr. Iram’s solid grounding in behavioral and cellular neuroscience qualifies her to explore the molecular basis of these findings.

Dr. Iram was recently appointed to the editorial board of the Journal of Molecular Neuroscience, the first graduate student in such a position.

In 2014, together with Prof. Illana Gozes, she founded the Israeli national competition in neuroscience for high school students, as part of an international neuroscience competition for high school students called the International Brain­Bee. Overall, over 500 Israeli students enrolled in the program. This year, for the third year in a row, students will compete to represent Israel in the annual international competition