School of Humanities and Sciences
Showing 1,161-1,180 of 2,090 Results
-
Shaili Mathur
Ph.D. Student in Biology, admitted Autumn 2021
BioI'm a PhD student in the Eco/Evo track in the Biology department at Stanford. I was at UCLA as an undergraduate, where I majored in Computational and Systems Biology and minored in Mathematics, and also completed my MS in Bioinformatics with Prof. Van Savage through the Departmental Scholar Program. I am interested in using theory and experimental techniques to understand evolutionary dynamics, information processing in biological systems, and complexity in biological systems.
-
Susan K. McConnell
Susan B. Ford Professor, Emerita
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsSusan McConnell has studied the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie the development of the mammalian cerebral cortex. Her work focused on the earliest events that pattern the developing forebrain, enable neural progenitors to divide asymmetrically to generate young neurons, propel the migration of postmitotic neurons outward into their final positions, and sculpt the fates and phenotypes of the neurons as they differentiate.
-
Nathan McDonald
Basic Life Science Research Associate, Biology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsI am interested in the fundamental cell biology of neurons. In particular, I study how neuronal synapses are formed and function. Synapses are specialized intercellular junctions that facilitate rapid communication between neurons, and thus form the basis of neural circuits and nervous system function.
Within a synapse, synaptic vesicles containing neurotransmitters are released at a specific region termed the active zone. The active zone is composed of a variety of molecules that coordinate the tethering and priming of synaptic vesicles, the recruitment of ion channels to respond to action potentials, and the stabilization of the synapse through transmembrane connections to a postsynaptic cell.
A wide range of transmembrane proteins are capable of initiating synapse formation during development and provide specificity for targeting the proper postsynaptic cell, including Neurexins/Neuroligins, LRRTMs, DIPs/DPRs, and many Ig domain proteins. However, in all synapses, these molecules must signal to build a common active zone core. I am studying how the conserved active zone core assembles downstream of this complexity, a fundamental unresolved question in developmental neurobiology.
To study this problem, I use the simple and stereotyped nervous system of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. I use fluorescent imaging of endogenous proteins at single neuron and single synapse resolution, as well as genetic and biochemical methods.
