David Lin: The right connections

Neuroscientist David M. Lin in a Veterinary Research Tower lab being remodeled to accommodate several scientists. Frank DiMeo/University Photography

By Roger Segelken

The human brain contains billions of neurons, and as that wonder of networking develops, it has to form trillions of connections. "When this wiring goes wrong," says David M. Lin, assistant professor of biomedical sciences, "our ability to see, move or perceive pain -- much less think -- can be greatly affected. We simply can't function without a working nervous system."

Lin, who has been active in the Cornell Genomics Initiative and also is involved in the neuroscience program of the New Life Sciences Initiative, is hoping to answer one of the great questions of his specialty: How do neurons in a developing nervous system "know" where to go to reach their partners, and what signals guide them there? He chose a slightly less complex organism than the human -- his developmental model of choice is the mouse, and specifically its olfactory system -- but that's still too big a problem for one neuroscientist alone. "That's why I'm glad to be at Cornell at a time like this, with so many opportunities for collaboration with investigators in other fields already in place," Lin said, "and so many more beginning to develop."

On the faculty less than a year, Lin has reached out and created working relationships in other disciplines, ranging from computer science, nanobiotechnology and statistics to infectious diseases, nutrition and behavior.

One campus project that particularly engages him is the proposed Life Science Technology Building, and Lin hopes that some of the laboratories in the new facility will follow a pattern that is developing in the part of campus he calls home, the Veterinary Research Tower. There, renovation workers are literally knocking down walls to form vast laboratory spaces where researchers in different -- but more and more related -- disciplines can interact.

Lin's new workspace will be in one of those interdisciplinary megalabs, and he can't wait to move in. "Without interactions and connections," he said, "I can't function."