Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

The central nervous system controls our ability to move, sense, and think. Proper development of the nervous system requires the generation of a diverse set of neurons that acquire different identities and function. Each type of neuron is born with a unique, intrinsic transcriptional code that gives it the potential to carry out specific tasks. In order for this potential to be realized, newly-born neurons have to receive proper instructions from other cells. These extrinsic signals ultimately lead to the activation of distinct set of 'effector' genes that gives each individual neuron its unique properties. To date, almost nothing is known about how a neuron integrates the information from intrinsic and extrinsic regulatory factors to convert them into specific gene expression profiles that define the neuron's role in the nervous system. It is crucial to gain a better understanding of this process because alteration in either intrinsic and/or extrinsic factors have been implicated in many developmental, psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases I utilize the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, to understand how neurons integrate intrinsic and extrinsic factors to acquire their correct identities and function. I am using the fruit fly as a model organism because of the powerful genetic tools that are available in this organism. In addition, many of the basic processes that govern development of the fruit fly nervous system also govern development of the human nervous system. Thus, my studies are relevant to understanding how human neurons develop, and how abnormalities in neuronal programming lead to human brain diseases.