Johann Eberhart
University of Texas at Austin, TX·Biology
Birth defects of the face and skull are among the most common in humans. Fetal alcohol exposure is a leading preventable cause of birth defects.
- Fields
Biology
Genetics
Neuroscience
- Topics
zebrafish
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
ethanol teratogenesis
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jul 2029
What they work on
- Characterize how reactive oxygen species (ROS), damaging reactive molecules, contribute to ethanol-induced birth defects, using genetic screens in zebrafish embryos.
- Determine how mTORC1 signaling, a growth-control pathway acting downstream of ROS, modulates ethanol's ability to cause defects in developing zebrafish.
- Identify genetic risk and resilience factors that make zebrafish embryos more or less susceptible to ethanol, as candidates for human FASD susceptibility genes.
- Define the cell signaling interactions that drive shaping of the vertebrate head and how distinct craniofacial tissues, such as muscle and tendon, integrate in zebrafish.
- Examine how environmental exposures and gene–environment interactions disrupt craniofacial development to cause variable facial and palatal defects.
More about the research
In both cases, genes and environment act together. They decide whether, and how severely, development goes wrong. This lab uses zebrafish embryos to study how normal head development works. It also studies how genetic variation and exposures such as ethanol disrupt it.
Why it matters
Gene function is highly conserved between zebrafish and humans, so these findings could translate to people. They may provide candidate genes for human association studies and risk factors for genetic counseling. They could also suggest possible therapies for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and for common craniofacial birth defects such as malformations of the palate and face.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Kevin Williams
North Carolina Central University, NC·Biology
Test how candidate genes, identified as altered in ethanol-exposed mouse limb buds by RNA sequencing, rescue or worsen alcohol-induced fin and limb defects, using gene knockouts in cells, zebrafish and mice.
Lomeli Shull
University of New Mexico, NM·Biology·Early-career
Define how Prdm3 and Prdm16 regulate Wnt/β-catenin signaling, a pathway that steers cell fate, in cartilage cells during zebrafish craniofacial development using molecular, genetic and epigenetic tools.
Mark Grimes
University of Montana, MT·Biomedical Engineering
Test whether seeding human neural crest stem cells in 3D hydrogel scaffolds with extracellular matrix components identified in organoids makes craniofacial cartilage faster and more reproducibly than self-organizing organoids.
The school
University of Texas at Austin: 49 labs on PI Pages, $1.1B a year on research, 871 research doctorates a year.
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