My laboratory uses zebrafish as a simple vertebrate system to study how the forebrain and pituitary gland develop, and to investigate how axons are guided across the midline to form the forebrain commissures and optic chiasm. Accessible and rapid early development, combined with beautiful imaging characteristics and the ability to manipulate gene expression, make zebrafish a powerful model system for the study of early brain
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Brother of cdo (umleitung) is cell-autonomously required for Hedgehog-mediated ventral CNS patterning in the zebrafish (with Sadie A. Bergeron, Oksana V. Tyurina, Emily Miller, and Andrea Bagas), Development (2011)
The transmembrane protein Brother of Cdo (Boc) has been implicated in Shh-mediated commissural axon guidance,...
Essential genes for astroglial development and axon pathfinding during zebrafish embryogenesis (with Michael J.F. Barresi, Sean Burton, Kristina DiPietrantonio, Adam Amsterdam, and Nancy Hopkins), Developmental Dynamics (2010)
The formation of the central nervous system depends on the coordinated development of neural and...
The Transcriptional Repressor REST/NRSF modulates Hedgehog Signaling (with Keith P. Gates, Laura Mentzer, and Howard I. Sirotkin), Developmental Biology (2010)
The spatial and temporal control of gene expression is key to generation of specific cellular...
A laser pointer driven microheater for precise local heating and conditional gene regulation in vivo. Microheater driven gene regulation in zebrafish (with Mike Placinta, Meng-Chieh Shen, and Marc Achermann), BMC Developmental Biology (2009)
Background - Tissue heating has been employed to study a variety of biological processes, including...
Graded Hedgehog and Fibroblast Growth Factor Signaling Independently Regulate Pituitary Cell Fates and Help Establish the Pars Distalis and Pars Intermedia of the Zebrafish Adenohypophysis (with A. Tuba Ozacar and Jeanne E. Thomas), Endocrinology (2008)
The vertebrate adenohypophysis forms as a placode at the anterior margin of the neural plate,...