Brief Biography
Dr. Ted Abel is a Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of the Biological Basis of Behavior Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Abel was an undergraduate at Swarthmore College, receiving a B.A. in Chemistry in 1985. After Swarthmore, Dr. Abel attended the University of Cambridge (Christ’s College) as a Marshall Scholar, receiving an M. Phil. in Biochemistry and working with Dr. R. Tim Hunt on the cloning of cyclin. Dr. Abel then moved to Harvard University to work with Dr. Tom Maniatis on transcriptional regulation during Drosophila development as a National Science Foundation graduate fellow. After receiving his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 1993 from Harvard University, Dr. Abel moved to the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University to do his postdoctoral work with Dr. Eric Kandel. Dr. Abel’s postdoctoral work focused on genetic approaches to study the role of protein kinase A in neuronal function. During his postdoctoral research, Dr. Abel received a fellowship from the Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Research Fund and a young investigator award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD). In 1998, Dr. Abel joined the Biology Department at the University of Pennsylvania as an Assistant Professor. His lab focuses on the role of the protein kinase A signaling pathway and transcriptional regulation in memory storage, sleep/wake regulation and mouse models of psychiatric disease. As an independent investigator, Dr. Abel has received a John Merck Scholars Award and a David and Lucile Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering. In 1999, Dr. Abel received a Young Investigator Award from the Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In 2000, he received the Daniel X. Freedman Award from NARSAD for outstanding research by a NARSAD young investigator. Dr. Abel’s accomplishments in undergraduate teaching, research and advising were recognized in 2001 and 2005 when he was named Biological Basis of Behavior (BBB) Society Professor of the Year by the undergraduate BBB majors at Penn. In 2006, Dr. Abel was selected as the recipient of the School of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Award for Mentorship of Undergraduate Research. In 2005, Dr. Abel was elected to membership in the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Dr. Abel is an Associate Editor of Behavioral Neuroscience and a member of the editorial board of Hippocampus. He has been a member of the Scientific Review Council and the Board of Directors of Cure Autism Now, and served on the Scientific Advisory Committee of Autism Speaks. He has served on grant review panels for the National Science Foundation and for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and he is currently a member of the Learning and Memory Study Section at NIH. Dr. Abel’s research has been supported by grants to from t