In Memoriam: Lynn Landmesser, 1943-2024

Lynn Landmesser, professor emerita of neuroscience at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, passed away on November 29. She was 81 years old.

Dr. Landmesser’s career in academia began as a postdoctoral fellow with the University of Utah. Her first official teaching positions were with Yale University and the University of Connecticut. In 1993, she began her two-decades-long career in the department of neuroscience at Case Western Reserve University. She quickly worked her way through the academic ranks, ultimately becoming chair of her department and earning an appointment as the Arline H. and Curtis E. Garvin Professor of Medicine from 1999 to 2014.

In her research endeavors, Dr. Landmesser focused on understanding how genetically encoded molecular signals and the environment interact to form complex neural circuits during embryonic and postnatal development. Through her work, she aimed to develop novel techniques that could restore neural circuits damaged by disease or injury. She authored nearly a hundred scholarly articles, which earned her membership with the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Physiological Society.

Outside of her work at Case Western Reserve University, Dr. Landmesser was also a leader within the neuroscience discipline at large. Throughout her career, she served on the Scientific Review Board for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, as well as advisory committees for the Society for Neuroscience and the Sloan Research Fellows Selection Committee for Neuroscience. She also had a stint as president of the Society for Developmental Biology. On an international scale, she helped to develop the Brain Science Institute, currently known as the RIKEN Center for Brain Science in Japan.

Dr. Landmesser earned her bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. in zoology from the University of California, Los Angeles.