Dr. Chris McBain is Named NICHD Intramural Scientific Director

Mick Craig, PhD, attending a graduation ceremony. Photo courtesy of Dr. Craig.

Dr. Mick Craig was a postdoctoral visiting fellow in the McBain lab from 2011–2016. During this time, Dr. Craig studied how inhibitory interneurons coordinate electrical activity in the brain. “If you think about the brain’s electrical activity as music, my research examined how these cells act as the conductor,” Dr. Craig explains.

Today, Dr. Craig is a senior lecturer (the UK equivalent to an associate or tenured professor) at the University of Glasgow in Scotland.

“Dr. McBain is a truly outstanding mentor. The most important lesson that I learned from Dr. McBain was that the success of a group leader is not in the amount of grants they get, or the number of papers they publish. Dr. McBain taught me that the success of a PI is measured by the success of their trainees, and if I can look after my people even a fraction as well as Dr. McBain did, then I will have done my job exceptionally well.”

April Johnston, PhD, high school biology teacher. Photo courtesy of Dr. Johnston.

Dr. April Johnston worked on her graduate thesis in the McBain lab from 2013–2014 as a visiting graduate student from Karolinska Institute in the NIH Graduate Partnership Program. She studied how activating or silencing serotonin and dopamine receptor subtypes affects a rhythm, called gamma oscillation, in the hippocampus. Today, Dr. Johnston teaches high school biology.

“The most important scientific lesson from the McBain lab: surround yourself with competent, likeable people. Dr. McBain is a brilliant scientist, and he's also really good at finding, recruiting, and retaining good scientists. [He also taught me] to be systematic in your approach to experiments. Try simple experiments first before making your life overly complicated.”

Libby Barksdale, PhD, on a run in Michigan. Photo courtesy of Dr. Barksdale.

Dr. Libby Barksdale was a postdoctoral fellow in the McBain lab from 2011–2015. During her studies, she designed and contributed to multiple projects investigating the impacts of altering the excitatory/inhibitory balance in the developing hippocampus on interneuron number and function.

Now, Dr. Barksdale is Director of Regulatory Affairs and Scientific Policy for a lung cancer patient advocacy group called LUNGevity Foundation. There, she works with the FDA, drug companies, clinical investigators, and patients to identify and address challenges affecting cinical trial systems. Dr. Barksdale notes that “it's a pretty far cry from developmental neuroscience, but it's very satisfying!”

“The most important lesson I learned in Dr. McBain's lab was not to be afraid to try something new. I didn't know anything about interneurons when I started and didn't know many of the techniques I would come to use. But sometimes you have to jump in and trust that your training has prepared you to handle the unknown.”