Rate My Professor John Bekkers

Professor John Bekkers is Head of the Eccles Institute of Neuroscience and Head of the Division of Neuroscience in the John Curtin School of Medical Research within the College of Health and Medicine at the Australian National University. He holds a BSc (Hons 1) in physics from Griffith University, an MSc in history and philosophy of science from the University of Manchester, and a PhD in neuroscience from the University of Cambridge. After completing his PhD, he undertook postdoctoral training at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. Bekkers has been a full-time academic at ANU for over 30 years, where he established his own laboratory. He has served as Deputy Director of the John Curtin School of Medical Research and Director of the Australasian Course in Advanced Neuroscience, training young neuroscientists from Australia and New Zealand. He leads the Bekkers Group - Olfaction, focusing on cellular neuroscience.

Bekkers' research investigates neurons and neural circuits underlying the sense of smell in the mammalian brain, particularly in the primary olfactory cortex or piriform cortex of mice. His group examines how the brain encodes odour identity, how neural patterns change with learning, and why the olfactory cortex is prone to epilepsy. Techniques employed include patch-clamp electrophysiology in vivo and in vitro, two-photon microscopy, optogenetics, and computer modelling. This work addresses broader questions about sensory processing and potential links to disorders such as schizophrenia, autism, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and epilepsy. Bekkers has received the Griffith University Medal, a Commonwealth Scholarship to the UK, the Gedge Prize in Biology from Cambridge University, a Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellowship, an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship, and the Award for Education in Neuroscience from the US Society for Neuroscience. Key publications include "Dopamine Increases the Intrinsic Excitability of Parvalbumin-Expressing Fast-Spiking Cells in the Piriform Cortex" (2022, Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience), "Fast and slow feedforward inhibitory circuits for cortical odor processing" (2022, eLife), and "Autaptic Cultures: Methods and Applications" (2020, Frontiers in Synaptic Neuroscience). He is an internationally recognized expert and has provided media commentary on neuroscience topics.