Bryce LaFoya
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Biology·Early-career
When the brain develops or repairs itself, stem cells must divide enough to make the right number of neurons, but not so much that growth runs out of control and leads to tumors. Neural stem cells in nearly all animals strike this balance through asymmetric cell division.
- Fields
Biology
Neuroscience
Genetics
- Topics
neural stem cells
asymmetric cell division
proliferative asymmetry
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Screen neural stem cells in Drosophila and zebrafish for proliferation regulators that become polarized, or concentrated on one side, in the mother cell before asymmetric division, using live imaging of developing brains.
- Determine how polarized proliferation regulators such as the lipid PIP3, which is inherited by the daughter that stays a stem cell, cause sister cells to divide at different rates.
- Determine how PAR polarity proteins, which define a cell's opposite sides, regulate the PI3K growth-signaling pathway to set up proliferative asymmetry in the neural stem cell lineage.
- Compare fly and fish neural stem cells to identify which ways of creating proliferative asymmetry are shared between invertebrates and vertebrates and which differ.
More about the research
Each division produces one daughter that stays a stem cell and quickly divides again, and one progenitor daughter that makes neurons and divides slowly or stops. This difference in division rate, called proliferative asymmetry, ensures that the right number of neurons forms, but how it is established is mostly unknown.
Why it matters
Many diseases trace back to stem cells making too many or too few cells. Learning how neural stem cells control how many neurons they produce adds basic understanding of brain development and tissue repair. It could also shed light on how unchecked stem-cell growth contributes to tumors, and the work aims to eventually inform new treatments for such disorders.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Sarah Siegrist
University of Virginia, VA·Neuroscience
Identify the intrinsic differences between Drosophila neural stem cells that divide only when nutrients are available and the subset that divides regardless of diet, using genetic approaches and single-cell sequencing.
Jiakun Chen
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Neuroscience
Define how the phospholipid ligand for the Tre1/S1pr1 receptor is regulated in neurons versus astrocytes to direct astrocyte fine process outgrowth, using genetic, chemical and in vivo live-imaging approaches in zebrafish.
Sergi Simo
University of California-Davis, CA·Neuroscience
Determine how the E3 ubiquitin ligase CRL5 regulates the activity of PIP5K and PI3K, the enzymes that make the signaling lipids PIP2 and PIP3, in neocortical projection neurons.
The school
University of Wisconsin-Madison: 91 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 854 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.