Lai Lab
Principal Investigator: Helen Lai
Institution: The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas, TX)
Primary Subfield: Neuroscience
Recruitment Status: ✅ Accepting PhD Students ✅ Hiring Postdocs
Research Focus
The developing spinal cord has long been a classic model for understanding neurodevelopmental mechanisms yet linking developmental cell types to their adult counterparts has proved elusive. Developmental transcription factors are required for the differentiation and specification of cell types during embryogenesis and are expressed in discrete domains in the developing spinal cord. Yet in the adult, expression of these developmental transcription factors is lost making it difficult to connect embryonic progenitor domains to their adult cell types and function. We will address this gap in knowledge by tracking developmental lineages over time using genetic lineage tracing of molecularly-defined progenitor domains and assaying the changes in transcription, epigenome, and anatomical distribution. Comprehensive understanding of the developmental lineages will reveal true structural and functional complexity of spinal cord circuits that are not reflected in single- cell transcriptomics of adult tissue. We will focus on the developing dorsal progenitor domains that give rise to adult cell types of the dorsal to intermediate spinal cord. The dorsal spinal cord is the primary area for inte…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R01MH134799-03: Molecular and anatomical atlases from progenitors to adult neurons in the mouse spinal cord (2026)
- 5R01MH134799-02: Molecular and anatomical atlases from progenitors to adult neurons in the mouse spinal cord (2025)
- 5R21NS128203-02: Regenerative mechanisms of somatosensory neurons (2024)
- 1R01MH134799-01: Molecular and anatomical atlases from progenitors to adult neurons in the mouse spinal cord (2024)
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