Welcome to the Hsieh Lab!
Stem cells in the adult mammalian brain maintain tissue homeostasis,
represent an extraordinary example of brain plasticity, and may
contribute to repair and regeneration after brain injury, such as
epilepsy and stroke. Moreover, as putative cancer stem cells, neural
stem cells are suspected to be the root of brain malignancies like
glioblastoma multiforme. The persistence of neurogenesis in the
postnatal hippocampus suggests that stem cells might contribute to
learning and memory formation, in a multistep process that involves
cell proliferation, cell cycle exit, a choice between survival and
death, and cell fate decisions, including neurons versus glial. Many
factors can modulate adult neurogenesis, such as seizure activity,
stress, hormones, and aging, but how these cell-extrinsic signals
transduce their fate-directing effects to the stem cell genome is
largely unknown.
A major focus of our lab is to understand the signaling circuitry and transcriptional regulatory mechanisms that govern neural stem cell fate decisions in both normal and disease states. Current projects are aimed at defining the roles of transcriptional/epigenetic regulatory proteins such as NRSF/REST, histone deacetylases (HDACs), and MEF2 in adult neural stem cells. We have also taken a chemical biology approach to identify novel small-molecules to study self-renewal and differentiation of glioma stem cells.
