Carol Schuurmans

Neural development, cell differentiation, cell replacement therapies Cell Biology, Regulation of Gene Expression The overarching goal of my laboratory is to understand how neurogenesis is regulated and cell fate choices are made in the developing central nervous system – in particular, in the retina and neocortex. Currently we focus on two families of transcription factors – the proneural genes Neurog1, Neurog2 and Ascl1, encoding basic-helix-loop-helix transcription factors, and members of the pleiomorphic adenoma gene (Plag) family, including Zac1, Plag1 and Plag-l2, encoding zinc finger transcription factors. We have also begun to examine how different signaling molecules (e.g., ERK, Pten) influence transcriptional networks to control retinal and cortical neurogenesis and tissue morphogenesis. More recently we have begun to apply the knowledge we have gained from studying embryonic development to interrogate the molecular response of neural progenitor cells to injury, and to design novel lineage conversion strategies for cellular repair.