Joseph Takahashi, Ph.D.

Joseph Takahashi is Chair of the Department of Neuroscience and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at UT Southwestern Medical Center. He currently holds the Loyd B. Sands Distinguished Chair in Neuroscience. Before moving to UT Southwestern, Dr. Takahashi was the Walter and Mary Elizabeth Glass Professor in the Life Sciences at Northwestern University. During his 26-year tenure at Northwestern, he held appointments as professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Physiology on the Evanston campus and professor in the Department of Neurology at Northwestern University Medical School. In addition, he was also the director of the Center for Functional Genomics.

Dr. Takahashi received a BA in biology from Swarthmore College in 1974 and a PhD in neuroscience from the University of Oregon, Eugene, in 1981. For postdoctoral training, he was a pharmacology research associate at the National Institute of Mental Health from 1981-1983.

Dr. Takahashi has pioneered the use of forward genetics and positional cloning in the mouse as a tool for discovery of genes underlying neurobiology and behavior, and his discovery of the mouse and human clock genes led to a description of a conserved circadian clock mechanism in animals.

He is the author of more than 200 scientific publications and the recipient of many awards including the Honma Prize in Biological Rhythms Research, NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, Searle Scholars Award, Bristol-Myers Squibb Unrestricted Grant in Neuroscience, and the C. U. Ariens Kappers Medal. He received the W. Alden Spencer Award in Neuroscience from Columbia University in 2001, was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000 and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2003.

Dr. Takahashi has served on a number of advisory committees for the National Institutes of Health, as well as scientific advisory boards for Eli Lilly and Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Neuroscience Committee, the Genomics Research Institute for the Novartis Foundation, the Klingenstein Fund, the Searle Scholars Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, and the Restless Legs Syndrome Foundation. He was also a co-founder of Hypnion, Inc., a biotech discovery company in Worcester, Mass., that investigated sleep/wake neurobiology and pharmaceuticals (now owned by Eli Lilly and Co.).

He is on the Editorial Boards for PNAS, PLoS Genetics, Curr Opin Neurobiol, J Biol Rhythms, and Genes, Brain and Behavior. He is currently the President of the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms.

 

Undergraduate	Swarthmore College (1974), Biology
Graduate School	University of Oregon (1981), Biology

• Circadian Biology
• Genetic Dissection of Behavior
• Molecular Neuroscience
• Mouse Genetics and Genomics
• Oscillator dynamics

Featured Publications

PERIOD2::LUCIFERASE real-time reporting of circadian dynamics reveals persistent circadian oscillations in mouse peripheral tissues.

Yoo SH, Yamazaki S, Lowrey PL, Shimomura K, Ko CH, Buhr ED, Siepka SM, Hong HK, Oh WJ, Yoo OJ, Menaker M, Takahashi JS Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2004 Apr 101 15 5339-46

Positional syntenic cloning and functional characterization of the mammalian circadian mutation tau.

Lowrey, P.L., K. Shimomura, M.P. Antoch, S. Yamazaki, P.D. Zemenides, M.R. Ralph, M. Menaker and J.S. Takahashi. Science 2000 288:483-491 8

Functional identification of the mouse circadian Clock gene by transgenic BAC rescue.

Antoch, M.P., E.-J. Song, A.-M. Chang, M.H. Vitaterna, Y. Zhao, L.D. Wilsbacher, A.M. Sangoram, D.P. King, L.H. Pinto and J.S. Takahashi. Cell 1997 89:655-667. 12

Positional cloning of the mouse circadian Clock gene.

King, D.P., Y. Zhao, A.M. Sangoram, L.D. Wilsbacher, M. Tanaka, M.P. Antoch, T.D.L. Steeves, M.H. Vitaterna, J.M. Kornhauser, P.L. Lowrey, F.W. Turek and J.S. Takahashi. Cell 1997 89:641-653. 12

Mutagenesis and mapping of a mouse gene, Clock, essential for circadian behavior.

Vitaterna, M.H., D.P. King, A.-M. Chang, J.M. Kornhauser, P.L. Lowrey, J.D. McDonald, W.F. Dove, L.H. Pinto, F.W. Turek and J.S. Takahashi. Science 1994 264:719-725 6

Transcriptional architecture and chromatin landscape of the core circadian clock in mammals.

Koike, N., S.H. Yoo, H.C. Huang, V. Kumar, C. Lee, T.K. Kim and J.S. Takahashi. Science August 2012

Crystal structure of the heterodimeric CLOCK:BMAL1 transcriptional activator complex.  

Huang N, Chelliah Y, Shan Y, Taylor CA, Yoo SH, Partch C, Green CB, Zhang H, Takahashi JS   Science 2012 Jul 337 6091 189-94

Circadian integration of metabolism and energetics.

Bass J, Takahashi JS   Science 2010 Dec 330 6009

Temperature as a universal resetting cue for mammalian circadian oscillators.  

Buhr ED, Yoo SH, Takahashi JS   Science 2010 Oct 330 6002 379-85

Searching for genes underlying behavior: lessons from circadian rhythms.

Takahashi JS, Shimomura K, Kumar V   Science 2008 Nov 322 5903 909-12

• National Academy of Sciences
  Member (2003)
• W. Alden Spencer Award
  College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University (2001)
• American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  Fellow (2000)
• 6th C.U. Ariens Kappers Award
  Netherlands Society for the Advancement of Natural Sciences, Medicine and Surgery (1995)
• Honma Prize in Biological Rhythms Research
  Honma Foundation of Life Sciences (1986)