个人简介

Dr. Carol Schuurmans is the Dixon Family Chair in Opthamology Research and Senior Scientist at the Sunnybrook Research Institute. She completed her BSc and MSc degrees in Microbiology at the University of Alberta and her PhD degree in Medical Genetics at the University of Toronto. She then undertook postdoctoral studies at the Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire in Strasbourg, France. Dr. Schuurmans joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Calgary as an Assistant Professor in 2001, and became full Professor in 2014. In July, 2016, Dr. Schuurmans joined the Sunnybrook Research Institute and became full Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto. Her research is focused on the specification of neural cell fates and the control of tissue morphogenesis in the developing central nervous system, in particular in the retina and neocortex. She is now applying her knowledge of neural development to understand the injury response, and to create lineage conversion strategies for cell replacement therapies.

研究领域

The overarching goal of my laboratory is to understand how neurogenesis is regulated and cell fate choices are made in the developing central nervous system – in particular, in the retina and neocortex. Currently we focus on two families of transcription factors – the proneural genes Neurog1, Neurog2 and Ascl1, encoding basic-helix-loop-helix transcription factors, and members of the pleiomorphic adenoma gene (Plag) family, including Zac1, Plag1 and Plag-l2, encoding zinc finger transcription factors. We have also begun to examine how different signaling molecules (e.g., ERK, Pten) influence transcriptional networks to control retinal and cortical neurogenesis and tissue morphogenesis. More recently we have begun to apply the knowledge we have gained from studying embryonic development to interrogate the molecular response of neural progenitor cells to injury, and to design novel lineage conversion strategies for cellular repair.

Research in my lab is focused on understanding how transcription factors regulate cell fate choices in the central nervous system, ensuring that appropriate numbers of the correct types of neuronal and glial cells are generated at their proper time and place in development. Currently we focus on two families of transcription factors - the proneural genes Ngn1, Ngn2 and Mash1, encoding basic-helix-loop-helix transcription factors, and members of the pleiomorphic adenoma gene (Plag) family, including Zac1, Plag1 and Plag-l2, encoding zinc finger transcription factors. Strikingly, we showed that Ngn2 has distinct functions at early and intermediate stages of development in the neocortex, and our long-term goals are to identify the underlying molecular mechanisms. In addition, my lab has pursued a new avenue of research, analyzing the function of the Ngn2-regulated gene, Zac1, a known tumor suppressor gene that we isolated in a subtractive screen, in the developing retina. We showed that Zac1 is an important regulator of tissue size and cellular composition in the retina, acting through a novel feedback mechanism. We also have preliminary evidence that the related gene, Plag-l2, functions in an opposing manner to Zac1 in the retina, similar to the complementary functions of these genes in tumor cells. Our goal is to further characterize Zac1 and Plag-l2 function in the developing retina.

近期论文

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Sak, a murine protein-serine/threonine kinase that is related to the Drosophila polo kinase and involved in cell proliferation. Fode C, Motro B, Yousefi S, Heffernan M, Dennis JW. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 1994; 91(14):6388-92. PubMed [journal] PMID: 8022793 PMCID: PMC44207 Select item at position 2 GlcNAc-transferase V and core 2 GlcNAc-transferase expression in the developing mouse embryo. Granovsky M, Fode C, Warren CE, Campbell RM, Marth JD, Pierce M, Fregien N, Dennis JW. Glycobiology. 1995; 5(8):797-806. PubMed [journal] PMID: 8720078 Select item at position 3 Constitutive expression of murine Sak-a suppresses cell growth and induces multinucleation. Fode C, Binkert C, Dennis JW. Molecular and cellular biology. 1996; 16(9):4665-72. PubMed [journal] PMID: 8756623 PMCID: PMC231466