School of Humanities and Sciences
Showing 1-5 of 5 Results
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Virginia Walbot
Professor of Biology, Emerita
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsOur current focus is on maize anther development to understand how cell fate is specified. We discovered that hypoxia triggers specification of the archesporial (pre-meiotic) cells, and that these cells secrete a small protein MAC1 that patterns the adjacent soma to differentiate as endothecial and secondary parietal cell types. We also discovered a novel class of small RNA: 21-nt and 24-nt phasiRNAs that are exceptionally abundant in anthers and exhibit strict spatiotemporal dynamics.
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Li Wang
Assistant Professor of Biology
BioLi is a developmental neurobiologist with interdisciplinary training in genomics, proteomics, and neuroscience. His research seeks to understand how cellular and synaptic diversity arises during human brain development and evolution, and how these same mechanisms may be hijacked in diseases such as brain cancer.
Li received his B.S. from Fudan University in China, where he studied synaptic plasticity during critical periods in the visual cortex. During his Ph.D. with Dr. Huda Zoghbi at Baylor College of Medicine, Li explored the molecular basis of neurodevelopmental disorders, uncovering how mutations in key proteins like SHANK3 and MeCP2 disrupt neural function. His postdoctoral work with Dr. Arnold Kriegstein at UCSF expanded this focus to human brain development at single-cell resolution. He generated multi-omic atlases and cross-species proteomic maps that revealed novel progenitor cell types and human-specific synapse maturation programs, with implications for cognition and brain cancer. Li directs the Human Brain Development Lab (https://www.liwanglab.org) at Stanford University, where he continues to investigate human brain development with a focus on stem cell lineages and synaptic diversity.
Li has received many awards, including the NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award, the Trainee Professional Development Award from the Society for Neuroscience, the Keystone Symposia Scholarship, the Dennis Weatherstone Predoctoral Fellowship from Autism Speaks, and the Dean’s Award for Excellence from Baylor College of Medicine. -
Ward Watt
Professor, Biology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsEvolutionary adaptive mechanisms, molecules to ecosystems
