My current work focuses on using induced pluripotent stem cells to study schizophrenia. Briefly, I obtained skin samples from schizophrenia patients as well as healthy controls. I then reprogrammed these skin cells into stem cells. I can now direct these stem cells to become neurons. Thus, from a small skin sample, I can generate near limitless quantities of live healthy and schizophrenia neurons to compare in the laboratory. I hope that by identifying differences between healthy and diseased neurons, I will soon be able to screen for new drugs with which to reverse the cellular defects present in schizophrenia.
Specialties: stem cell culture, neural differentiation