Sheila Gupta
I am an MD/PhD student pursuing my PhD in Molecular Biology in the Appel Lab, with a long-term clinical interest in child and adolescent psychiatry. My research is motivated by the observation that many neuropsychiatric disorders share abnormalities in white matter, yet the underlying mechanisms driving these abnormalities remain poorly understood. Human genome-wide association studies have identified developmental variants in synaptic proteins as risk factors for multiple neuropsychiatric conditions. Interestingly, oligodendrocytes, the cells that produce the myelin that makes white matter, express many of these synaptic proteins and use them to regulate myelin formation! Perhaps dysfunction of these synaptic proteins in oligodendrocytes contributes to the white matter deficits characteristic of these disorders. My current work focuses on studying the role that these synaptic proteins play in myelination. Specifically, I am investigating how oligodendrocytes use PSD-95, a key excitatory postsynaptic scaffold protein, to select axons for myelination during development and regulate myelin formation in response to neuronal activity.
Outside of lab I love horseriding, baking, spending time with my dog (Jimmy) and cat (Teddy), and attending as many classic rock cover bands as possible.
I am an MD/PhD student pursuing my PhD in Molecular Biology in the Appel Lab, with a long-term clinical interest in child and adolescent psychiatry. My research is motivated by the observation that many neuropsychiatric disorders share abnormalities in white matter, yet the underlying mechanisms driving these abnormalities remain poorly understood. Human genome-wide association studies have identified developmental variants in synaptic proteins as risk factors for multiple neuropsychiatric conditions. Interestingly, oligodendrocytes, the cells that produce the myelin that makes white matter, express many of these synaptic proteins and use them to regulate myelin formation! Perhaps dysfunction of these synaptic proteins in oligodendrocytes contributes to the white matter deficits characteristic of these disorders. My current work focuses on studying the role that these synaptic proteins play in myelination. Specifically, I am investigating how oligodendrocytes use PSD-95, a key excitatory postsynaptic scaffold protein, to select axons for myelination during development and regulate myelin formation in response to neuronal activity.
Outside of lab I love horseriding, baking, spending time with my dog (Jimmy) and cat (Teddy), and attending as many classic rock cover bands as possible.