Ultanir lab

Kinases and Brain Development Laboratory

: Areas of interest

Roles of kinases in brain development and function

Our research goal is to identify kinase signaling mechanisms that regulate formation, functioning and maintenance of nervous system with particular emphasis of disease-relevant kinases and signaling pathways.

Better understanding of kinase signaling pathways would facilitate the pursuit of targeted treatments for neurological diseases. Furthermore, accurate disease-relevant phosphorylation sites can be used as preclinical and clinical molecular biomarkers. We develop and characterize mouse models of neurological conditions and utilize these models in proteomic, transcriptomic, and genomic assays and characterize kinase signaling functions using cellular, physiological and behavioral analysis.

We are interested in kinases revealing neuronal roles of kinases CDKL5, mTOR, TNIK and NDR family of kinases.

A group of nine people sitting around a dinner table looking at the camera

 

Academic collaborators

Gabriele Lignani, UCL, Institute of Neurology
Joseph Bateman, King’s College London
Juan Burrone, King’s College London
Jernej Ule, King’s College London, UK Dementia research institute
Tim Benke, University of Colorado, USA
Florencia Iacaruso, Francis Crick Institute
Max Gutierrez, Francis Crick Institute
Alison Axtman, University of North Carolina, USA
Nicholas Mazarakis, Imperial College London.
Sam Amin, University of Bristol
Karen Low, University of Bristol

Industry collaborators

Lario Therapeutics, Rarebase

Selected publications