Research Overview

I joined the Macklis lab in February 2006 as a Ph.D. student in the department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University. My broad interests are in central nervous system development and repair. In the Macklis lab, I am focusing on development of corticospinal motor neurons (CSMN) from two main aspects: (1) Functional characterization of genes previously identified in the lab as candidates for controlling CSMN specification and differentiation.  In this study, in collaboration with Eiman Azim, I am applying an in vivo in utero RNAi-based approach for modulating expression of single and multiple genes in order to characterize their individual and combinatorial function at distinct stages of CSMN development. (2) Investigation of the molecular controls over the segmental target specificity of CSMN axonal projections to the spinal cord.  In collaboration with Denis Jabaudon, I am investigating the differences in gene expression throughout development of the corticospinal tract between subpopulations of CSMN projecting to cervical or lumbar spinal cord.  In the longer term, I hope these research findings will contribute to development of novel therapies for cellular repair of CSMN following spinal cord injury and for treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Prior to arriving at Harvard, I completed a M.Sc. degree in bioinformatics at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. During my thesis, I applied Bayesian methods towards reverse engineering of the segmentation gene network in Drosophila from protein expression data, under the supervision of Prof. Naama Barkai.  I completed my undergraduate studies in Biological Sciences with Honors at Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Key Recent Publications

• Azim, E.*, Shnider, S.J.*, Cederquist, G.Y., Sohur, U.S., Macklis, J.D. 2009. "Lmo4 and Clim1 progressively delineate cortical projection neuron subtypes during development." Cereb. Cortex. 19:62-9 . (*equally contributing first authors).

Previous Publications

• Bergmann, S., Sandler, O., Sberro, H., Shnider, S., Schejter, E., Shilo, B.Z., Barkai, N. 2007. "Pre-steady-state decoding of the Bicoid morphogen gradient". PLoS Biol. Feb;5(2):e46.