Brian M. Salzberg

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Prof. Salzberg received his Ph.D. degree in high energy Physics from Harvard University. Since the early 1970’s Prof. Salzberg has pioneered the application of optical methods, many of which he developed, to cell physiology and neuroscience. In 1972 he and Cohen and their colleagues discovered the first molecular probes of membrane potential, the merocyanine voltage-sensitive dyes. This was followed by optical recording of action potentials from individual neurons and then multiple site optical recording of membrane voltage, which paved the way for functional imaging of the nervous system. Prof. Salzberg and colleagues then introduced the first calcium indicator dye (Arsenazo III), which led to R.Y. Tsien's development of fluorescent calcium indicators and the thousands of papers that followed. Other contributions include the first recording of voltage changes from mammalian nerve terminals, the discovery of light scattering changes in these terminals, the detection of robust intrinsic fluorescence changes from these same terminals, that help us to understand the coupling of action potentials to mitochondrial activation, and the discovery of extremely rapid mechanical "spikes" in nerve terminals. Prof. Salzberg has served on the Board of Trustees of the Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole), on the Council of the Society of General Physiologists, on the Council and on the Executive Board of the Biophysical Society, and on the Executive Council of the Division of Biological Physics of the American Physical Society. He is also a member of the Trustees Committee on East Asian Art of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The author of numerous widely cited scientific publications, Salzberg is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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Cross-listing: Physics Tree