Section of Developmental Biology Faculty
Bruce Appel, PhD
Section Head
Professor of Pediatrics
Diane G. Wallach Chair of Pediatric Stem Cell Biology
Research Interests: Mechanisms of neural cell fate specification and myelination
Emily Bates, PhD
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Understanding how ion channels contribute to morphological development and microtubules are regulated for brain development
Alexa Burger, PhD
Associate Research Professor
Research Interests: Gene regulation in mesoderm patterning and congenital disease
Peter Dempsey, PhD
Professor
Research Interests: Intestinal stem cell programming and differentiation, cellular
plasticity, organoid models to study intestinal disease
Caleb Doll, PhD
Assistant Research Professor
Research Interests: Subcellular regulation of mRNA in myelin sheath development
Biographical information
Santos Franco, PhD
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Neural stem cell fate-specification, neurogenesis, cell migration and circuit formation in the developing brain
Sean McGrath, PhD
Instructor
Research Interests: Human pluripotent stem cells and genome editing technologies
Christian Mosimann, PhD
Associate Professor
Johnson Endowed Chair in Heart Developmental Research
Research Interests: Cell fate determination and cardiovascular lineage formation
Bradley Pawlikowski, PhD
Assistant Research Professor
Research Interests: Investigating CNS fibroblasts in development and disease
Charles Sagerström, PhD
Professor
Research Interests: Gene expression programs that drive embryogenesis
Stephen Santoro, PhD
Associate Professor
Research Interests: How experience sculpts the nervous system; neurogenesis; axon guidance; olfaction
Santoro Lab
Julie Siegenthaler, PhD
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Development and function of the CNS vasculature and meninges
Kelly Sullivan, PhD
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Interferon signaling in Down syndrome
Jen McKey, PhD
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Ovary development and establishment of female fertility, with a special focus on the structural mechanisms that drive ovary regionalization in perinatal life, and how modulation of these mechanisms alters adult ovarian functions and female reproductive longevity.
Elle Roberson, PhD
Assistant Professor
Research interests: Cell communication regulating adult uterine remodeling and regeneration
Xiuqing Wei, PhD
Research Instructor
Research Interest: Modeling human pancreatic beta cells with embryonic pluripotent stem cells and functional genomics.
Han Zhu, PhD
Assistant Professor
Research Interest: Integrating functional genomics tools and human pluripotent stem cell-derived β-cell organoid models to elucidate gene regulatory mechanisms governing β-cell formation and survival.