Miranda to Teach Course in Thailand

Rajesh C. Miranda, PhD, professor of neuroscience and experimental therapeutics at the Texas A&M Health Science Center (TAMHSC) College of Medicine, traveled to Bangkok, Thailand, on Oct. 11-15 to teach at the School in Addiction hosted by the Joint Asia-Pacific Society for Neuroscience and the International Society for Neurochemistry.

Dr. Miranda uses neural (brain) stem cells to study human fetal development and teratology, the study of abnormalities of physiological development. After giving a presentation on neural stem cell maturation in September at the World Congress of the International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism in Paris, an attendee invited Dr. Miranda to Thailand to teach at the School in Addiction.

“The program in Thailand was like a mini-United Nations,” Dr. Miranda said. “Science brought us together, whereas we might not have collaborated otherwise.”

During this weeklong course, he lectured to more than 25 students from the Asia-Pacific region and Africa on neural stem cells, addiction, maternal/fetal health and teratology. He also taught two groups of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows the aseptic technique (how to ensure a laboratory sample is not contaminated by microorganisms) and how to start neural stem cell cultures from fetal and adult mouse brain tissue.