Recently, we have obtained single cell transcriptomes from the primitive and definitive neural stem cells (both quiescent and activated) that make the brain. We will do computational analyses of these transcriptomes to determine common and differentially expressed genes among the various states of neural stem cells. Genes that are expressed differentially among the states and fates of neural stem cells will be tested using loss and gain of function manipulations to determine the functional roles of these genes on neural stem cell behaviour.

The SUDS Scholar will be working with our data set using R(Studio) to use the Cogent NGS Discovery Software and programs such as Seurat to find ways to differentially mark the different neural stem cell populations or find transcription factors that are important for stem cell identity.