Research Fellow

Developmental Biology

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (New York, NY)

Alexandra Joyner

Characterization of the functional roles of Engrailed proteins in cerebellar development.

The Engrailed family of homeodomain transcription factors are expressed during development in most cell types of the cerebellum and are required for specification of the normal size, foliation pattern, routing of afferent circuits and gene expression patterns. Recently, our group has shown that conditional deletion of En1 and En2 gene in cells arising from the ventricular zone and/or rhombic lip progenitor populations also exhibit some of these deficits, especially foliation defects (VZ deletion) and cerebellar hypoplasia (EGL deletion). Despite this central role in cerebellar development, the cofactors, gene targets and cell-specific roles of mammalian Engrailed proteins are not well understood. The goals of my project are two-fold: 1) Classification of the interacting partners and downstream transcriptional targets of En2, the principle member expressed in the granule cell lineage, with genetic knock-in and biochemical approaches; 2) Utilize inducible and conditional gene knockout strategies to identify cell type specific functions of Engrailed proteins in development of the mouse cerebellum and uncover the mechanism underlying the Engrailed hypoplasia phenotype.

2000 Research summer internship at Center for Blood Research at Harvard Medical School

2004 Brian Hoffman Award for Excellence - Graduate Studies