PouLab postdoc Cheryl Brandenburg was awarded a 2021 Autism Research Institute (ARI) grant for her work on “Cerebellar Circuits in 3D: Screening autism-associated genes in cleared brains with in utero CRISPR genome editing“. Congratulations Cheryl!!! Here is just a snippet of the mind-bending 3D cerebellar circuits from Cheryl’s in vivo edited Purkinje cells…!
Corinne Martin joins the team as the lab’s first Nathan Schnaper Intern!
Corinne Martin, a rising sophomore majoring in Bioengineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, joined the lab as part of the Nathan Schnaper Intern Program in Translational Cancer Research (NSIP).

Corinne is working on the genetic intersections between neoplasia and brain development, mining patient genome databases and using in vivo genome editing to probe effects on brain circuit development.
Lab Welcomes Newest PhD Student, Colin Robertson!
Colin Robertson comes to us from the Program in Neuroscience, with a particular interest in synapse pruning and circuit maturation. From day one, Colin (on the left) fit right in…! More soon on the exciting new science he’s after!
Lab gets a new postdoc, welcome Dr. Cheryl Brandenburg!
Cheryl Brandenburg comes to us from the Hussman Institute, and brings with her a PhD in Neuroscience, a knack for cerebellar circuits, and a passion for autism research! We’re excited to see where she takes her science next…!
Congrats to Bek and Alex for Postdoctoral Fellow Excellence in Mentorship and Teacher of the Year Awards!
Bek Altas and Alex Poulopoulos were Awarded by the Graduate School of Life Sciences with the 2020 Postdoctoral Fellow Excellence in Mentorship Award and Teacher of the Year Award, a lab dynamic duo in mentorship!!!
Congratulations to PIN postdoctoral fellow Dr. Bekir Altas for winning the Postdoctoral Fellow Excellence in Mentorship Award for an outstanding record of supportive mentorship to PIN and GPILS trainees! pic.twitter.com/RJNx37O9lJ
— Univ of Maryland School of Medicine Neuroscience (@UMMedNeuro) October 26, 2020
Congrats to Ryan for joining NIH BRAIN Initiative as a AAAS Fellow!
Ryan Richardson, the lab’s first postdoc, has joined the NIH Office of the Director, BRAIN Initiative with a prestigious AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship! Congratulations Ryan, we’re proud of you!!!
Read the press release of Ryan’s award:
UM School of Medicine Postdoctoral Fellow Awarded Prestigious AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship
Garrett’s Sidewalk Brain Q&A
Look out for these PouLab super stars at UNC and UCSF !
And now some good news for a change… BIG CONGRATS to Marilyn Steyert and Uriel Jean-Baptist for cleaning house on their graduate school applications!
Come next semester, Marilyn will be a PhD student in the Biomedical Sciences (BMS) Program at UC San Francisco, and Uriel will be a PhD student in the Biological & Biomedical Sciences Program (BBSP) at UNC Chapel Hill. We will miss you both, and you both will make us proud!
The Lab goes to Chicago…
(photo by T. Soykan)
The lab has fun recreating Raphael’s “The School of Athens” in Chicago, while presenting at the 2019 meeting of the Society for Neuroscience!
Ryan, Marilyn, and Jeffrey unveiled their new approach to high efficiency in vivo genome engineering with in situ CRISPR:
https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/7883/presentation/65807
Bek, Andrea, Noury, and Uriel debuted their findings on how a mutation in a family with intellectual disability affects the dynactin complex and cortical circuit wiring:
https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/7883/presentation/66733
Alex presented new findings on how phosphorylation of Neuroligin adhesion molecules determines synapse specificities:
https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/7883/presentation/58703
And how reciprocal adhesion gradient matching guides the development of cortical circuitry:
https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/7883/presentation/63936
… and Garrett stashed us some sweet top-shelf probes…
First day in lab for new PhD student from PiN!
Garrett Bunce from the Program in Neuroscience joins the lab. Garrett will apply his training in Systems and Computational Neuroscience to develop recording strategies for listening in on in situ genome engineered rat brains… Welcome Garrett!