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Benjamin Cocanougher
- Alumni
- United States
- 2016 PhD Zoology
- St Catharine's College
I grew up catching praying mantises and damselflies in rural Kentucky. As an undergraduate at Centre College, I majored in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; I spent my summers taking care of sick children at the Center for Courageous Kids and doing research in organic chemistry and neuroscience. I matriculated directly to the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and completed my first three years of medical school. I then moved to Janelia Research Campus as a HHMI Medical Research Fellow; there I studied the neural and genetic bases of behavior. As a PhD student in Zoology, I will study adaptive behavior. All animals integrate information about past experience into future decisions; this is the basis of learning and memory. I am proposing to write a specific memory and read the memory trace in the brain. I will use the fruit fly as a model organism. By understanding mechanisms of memory storage, we can begin to investigate changes in memory formation in disease; this may allow us to develop rational therapies for disorders of memory formation, including autism and Alzheimer’s disease. After completing my PhD, I will return to finish my last year of medical school and pursue a career as a child neurologist and neuroscientist, using my lab to better understand the patients I see in clinic.
Previous Education
Centre College
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Latest News
Women and Alzheimer’s
A Gates Cambridge Alumna will speak on the impact of women’s reproductive histories on their risk of Alzheimer’s at the annual Cambridge in America Day event in November. Molly Fox [2008] will speak about Darwinian Medicine and Alzheimer’s Disease at the Women in Science event in Silicon Valley on November 9th. Other speakers include Professor […]
Circuits of life
Researchers led by a Gates Cambridge Scholar have developed a new way of constructing complex genetic circuits which could fundamentally transform how we confront everything from environmental pollution to cancer. The emerging field of synthetic biology draws from principles adopted from engineering and information technology. It involves the use of standardised parts of DNA to […]
Gates Cambridge Application Webinar
A 20 minute presentation about the Gates Gates Cambridge Scholarships for 2014 entry
The science and emotion of musical performance
Musical performance and musicology can enhance each other and make classical music more accessible to a broad audience and explain why the experience of music is so profound, says Naomi Woo. Steeped in performance from the age of four, she has a background in musicology and plans to combine those two elements in her MPhil […]
Dare to differ
Leaders who dare to challenge the status quo will be the focus of the next annual conference of the Global Scholars Symposium which opens for recruits later this month. The Symposium was founded in 2008 by the Gates Cambridge Scholars at the University of Cambridge and speakers have included His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Its […]
Global health campaigner
Less than a year after finishing her PhD, Julia Fan Li is directing a $94m investment fund which will finance research and development for some of the most pressing global health challenges. Her role as director of the Global Health Investment Fund is inextricably linked to her time at the University of Cambridge and to […]
Intergenerational biotech summit launched
The world’s first global inter-generational biotech leadership summit featuring Nobel Prize winner Professor Ada Yonath and leading experts as well the future bio leaders has been launched by University of Cambridge students, including a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Applications for the Global Biotech Revolution’s Gap Summit will open on 1st October. The aim of the summit […]
Global health fund launched
A new investment fund directed by a Gates Cambridge alumna has been launched which, for the first time, will allow individual and institutional investors the opportunity to finance late-stage global health technologies that have the potential to save millions of lives in low-income countries. The Global Health Investment Fund is structured by JPMorgan Chase & […]
A passion for international law
Bart Szewczyk’s work in international law has been recognised by the prestigious magazine The Diplomatic Courier and Young Professionals in Foreign Policy which have named him one of the 99 most influential foreign policy leaders under 33. Bart [2001], who is in his second year of a fellowship at Columbia Law School, has been researching […]
