American History, Unfiltered: Ben Barres

American History, Unfiltered: A post series highlighting people from traditionally marginalized groups who accomplished great things for America.

National Scientist Day is coming up on March 14, and we are about to give you a fantastic one to celebrate this year. 

Ben Barres was dedicated to figuring out the function of glial cells. Before him, it was long-established in science to ignore glial cells and believe they were the “junk DNA” of the neural world, but Ben knew in is gut there was more to them. Even after going through several grant rejections, he and his colleagues discovered glia not only convey a variety of signals to neurons, they also control the formation of synapses, the crucial junctions between brain cells.

Thanks to the findings in his lab, they were able to develop an experimental drug that could block the formation of the glia, which has toxins causing degenerative processes in the brain. This drug could have the potential to treat conditions like Huntington’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and Guillain-Barre syndrome, which causes paralysis. 

This wasn’t his only great work in science. Ben was a transgender man who knew he wanted to be a scientist by the age of 5. Anyone assigned female at birth knows science is a tough field for women. Until Ben came out as a man, he was judged, ignored, scoffed at, and eyes were rolled behind his back. When he came out as a man, those who didn’t know he was a transgender man suddenly treated him with respect. He was heard, instead of interrupted. He turned into quite a gender equality activist after this. He worked to make science an equal playing field for all genders. He even wrote a book before he passed away (from pancreatic cancer) in 2017.