Poulopoulos Lab

November 11, 2023November 11, 2023

PouLab posters at SfN 2023

Calling all Neuroscientists!!!

Come check out all the PouLab posters at SfN 2023

Sunday pm session: “Genetic Techniques to Target and/or Manipulate Cells”, three back-to-back posters :

VV22: Find out what the best tag is for labeling your protein by Knockin at Andrea Romanowski‘s poster
https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/10892/presentation/39783
VV23: Learn about how some genes are resistant to CRISPR-activation at Ashley Marquardt‘s poster
https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/10892/presentation/39785
VV24: Get to see Neuroligin 3 for the first time in the human brain and how it might be used against brain cancer at Ro Whitten‘s poster
https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/10892/presentation/39784

Monday am session “Animal Models of Epilepsy: Genetics and Pharmacology”:

C57: Learn about an exciting new way to model individual epilepsy patients in mice using prime editing from Colin Robertson‘s poster
https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/10892/presentation/32416

Wednesday pm session “Mechanisms Underlying Axon Growth and Targeting”:

B14: Hear about a strange non-coding RNA that is involved in axon growth and potentially regeneration at Garrett Crutcher‘s poster
https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/10892/presentation/33556

Celebrate neuroscience with us!!!

October 16, 2023October 18, 2023

Cas9-RC on the cover of The CRISPR Journal!

Ryan Richardson’s paper describing the development of Cas9-RC, a new CRISPR agent with increased performance for knockin, is out in the October 2023 issue of The CRISPR Journal.

Not only that, but the paper got the cover! Kudos to Cheryl Brandenburg for the beautiful image of knockin neurons and astrocytes using Cas9-RC in the developing mouse brain. Congrats to the whole team for concluding this large piece of Synth Bio meets Dev Neurosci!

We would be delighted to have you try out Cas9-RC for your own knockin needs. Plasmids will become available on Addgene within the next few days!

CRISPR-J, Oct 2023 Cover — Cas9-RC Knockin on the cover of The CRISPR Journal

July 29, 2023

Corinne Martin Named 2023 Goldwater Scholar!!!

Corinne Martin was awarded a 2023 national Goldwater Scholarship!!! We couldn’t be prouder of her! Corinne spent two years as an NSIP intern in the lab, critically working on Pegassist and researching the links between brain development and brain cancer. Corinne’s ideas spawned new paths of investigation on how common cellular pathways in development get aberrantly reactivated in tumor cells. With a Goldwater scholarship, we are all excited to see the new frontiers Corinne will take on at the forefront of biomedical research! Congratulations Corinne!!!

https://eng.umd.edu/news/story/two-umd-bioengineering-majors-named-2023-goldwater-scholars

May 15, 2023December 30, 2023

The Brain’s Dark Transcriptome review out in Current Opinion Neurobiology!

Did you know that an estimated 40% of RNA in the brain is not captured by single-cell RNAseq?

Explore the intriguing world of the Brain’s Dark Transcriptome in our latest review, published in Current Opinion in Neurobiology! Check out the other great reviews in this special issue on Developmental Neuroscience edited by Debby Silver and Franck Polleux!

November 13, 2022November 14, 2022

PouLab at SfN 2022

Follow our science at the 4 PouLab posters at SfN 2022 in San Diego!

Cheryl Brandenburg on Monday morning (Y5):
“Light sheet mapping of parvalbumin subtypes of Purkinje cells using in vivo CRISPR strategies“

Colin Robertson on Monday afternoon (YY36):
“Neural somatic genome editing in the brain for personalized patient models“

Garrett Bunce and Ro Whitten on Wednesday morning (B31):
“The novel gene Ganon-1 produces a scaffolding RNA for growth signaling in developing axon projections“

Andrea Romanowski on Wednesday morning (C45):
“Mosaic Cas9 fusions to investigate cortical wiring by IgLON schizophrenia risk-genes in the rodent brain”

See you all at #SFN2022

October 21, 2022

Dr. Cheryl Brandenburg receives SfN Trainee Professional Development Award!

See Cheryl’s light sheet-imaged Purkinje Cells in 3D and the rest of the lab’s research at #SfN2022 in San Diego!

September 19, 2022November 10, 2022

New PhD student Ro Whitten joins the lab!

Ro Whitten, a developmental neuroscientists by training from U of Rochester and postbac at the NIH, joins the lab in style! Welcome Ro!

July 24, 2022July 24, 2022

Phosphorylation of Neuroligin-3

Our work on how the synaptic adhesion molecule Neuroligin-3 is targeted to either excitatory or inhibitory synapses based on phosphorylation is now available on the bioRxiv! Congrats to Bekir Altas, Liam Tuffy, Annarita Patrizi and the rest of the team in this international collaboration between the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, and the University of Turin.

Phosphorylation Determines Whether Neuroligin-3 is at Excitatory or Inhibitory Synapses in Different Regions of the Brain

May 6, 2022June 8, 2022

All in a day’s work…

Garrett hosts NOVA’s Halal on the Lawn, then gives a talk on the lncRNA he discovered; Andrea does supply runs, then gives a talk on multiplexing schizophrenia risk genes with CRISPR; Elise handles donation logistics, and attends both talks! And at the end of a good day’s work, the lab celebrates Alex’s birthday.

April 7, 2022April 10, 2022

Never heard of “mTOR outposts”? Now you have!

Read all about our postulate of the curious little things called “mTOR outposts” in this Hypothesis & Theory paper just out in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience!

Neuronal mTOR Outposts: Implications for Translation, Signaling, and Plasticity

Happy day for Bek, Andrea, Garrett, and Alex. Appreciations to Helen Bateup and Akira Yoshii for very constructive reviewing; to Gerardo Morfini for editing the Kinase/phosphatase signaling and axonal function in health and disease topic; and to all in the acknowledgements for the fascinating discussions around the concepts in the mTOR outpost model. Be part of those discussions, send us your thoughts!