Amy Sater
University of Houston, TX·Biology
The brain and spinal cord contain neurons and also glial cells, which include astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. Glia keep the nervous system working and help repair it after injury, yet how these cells first arise in the embryo is still poorly understood.
- Fields
Biology
Neuroscience
Genetics
- Topics
gliogenesis
glial cells
astrocytes
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Sep 2027
What they work on
- Test how retinoic acid, a vitamin A-derived signal that patterns the embryo from head to tail, triggers the start of glial cell formation in the front region of the developing spinal cord of Xenopus laevis embryos.
- Determine how retinoic acid drives the spread of glia-forming gene activity throughout the embryonic frog brain and spinal cord.
- Identify genes and cis-regulatory DNA regions linked to emerging glial lineages using single-nucleus profiling of gene expression and chromatin accessibility in Xenopus embryos.
- Define how frog glial development differs from the mammalian model, including radial glia that clear glutamate yet can still produce neurons.
More about the research
Mistakes in which genes glial cells switch on can contribute to cancers and neurodegenerative diseases, so learning how glial identity is set up and maintained could show how such mistakes happen in people.
Why it matters
Altered gene activity in glial cells can lead to brain cancers and neurodegenerative diseases. By revealing new ways glial genes are switched on and kept on, this work may expand understanding of how such changes arise in humans and could point to new opportunities for therapies that reverse harmful gene expression patterns. It may also clarify why glia keep the flexibility to support repair after nervous system injury.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Yungki Park
University at Buffalo, NY·Neuroscience
Determine whether Mef2d, a transcription factor that boosts the master regulator Olig2, controls Olig2 expression in oligodendrocyte-lineage cells in vivo.
Richard Harland
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Biology
Determine how members of the Plekhg family of Rho GTP exchange factors, proteins that switch on cell-shape signals, control specific cell behaviors during gastrulation and neurulation in Xenopus embryos, using CRISPR knockdown.
Kristen Curran
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, WI·Biology
Define changes in gene expression and metabolism during dorsal mesoderm specification by comparing wild-type and bmal1 knockout Xenopus animal caps induced with activin, using RNA-seq plus measurements of oxygen consumption and NAD+/NADH ratios.
The school
University of Houston: 21 labs on PI Pages, $239M a year on research, 374 research doctorates a year.
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