Seth Kullman
North Carolina State University, NC·Genetics
Why does the same chemical exposure harm one person's developing brain but spare another's? Problems with processing sensory information and choosing the right response are common in anxiety, autism (ASD) and schizophrenia.
- Fields
Genetics
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
- Topics
gene-environment interaction
GxE
developmental neurotoxicity
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2027
What they work on
- Use the Medaka Inbred Kiyosu-Karlsruhe (MIKK) panel of 80 sequenced inbred fish lines to measure how genetic background changes the effects of early-life contaminant exposure on larval sensory processing behavior.
- Test whether vertebrates share common pathways for responding to environmental contaminants, and whether natural genetic variation in these pathways produces polygenic gene-by-environment effects.
- Map molecular and behavioral responses to contaminants onto specific genomic locations, using the fully sequenced genomes and transcriptomes of the MIKK lines.
More about the research
Both genes and environment are thought to contribute, and so are interactions between them, called gene-by-environment (GxE) effects. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of chemicals in commercial use have never been tested for harm to the nervous system. This project asks how genetic differences change the way chemical exposure early in life affects later sensory processing behavior.
Why it matters
Many commercial chemicals have never been tested for effects on the developing nervous system, and people may differ in how vulnerable they are. Finding the genetic variants that shape responses to contaminants could help identify sensitive groups of people. It could also improve chemical safety testing as it relates to sensory processing problems seen in anxiety, autism and schizophrenia.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Gavin R Rumbaugh
University of Florida, FL·Neuroscience
Test whether genetic control of intrinsic membrane excitability, how readily a neuron fires, drives activity-dependent dendrite growth and the assembly of developing cortical circuits.
Julia Saltz
Indiana University, IN·Ecology & Evolution
Test how fruit flies' preference for a particular environment relates to their experience in that environment, and how both shape individual patterns of plasticity and fitness.
Xuan Zhuang
University of Arkansas, AR·Genetics·Early-career
Identify precursor sequences and mechanisms of gene birth for type I antifreeze proteins by comparing genomes of AFPI-bearing fishes with close relatives that lack these ice-binding genes.
The school
North Carolina State University: 40 labs on PI Pages, $717M a year on research, 603 research doctorates a year.
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