Keynote Speaker
Dr. Jessica Sullivan-Brown
"From worms to frogs: Using a dual-systems approach to study neural tube defects"
Dr. Sullivan-Brown's talk will focus on studying the process of neural tube closure, an early developmental event essential for the formation of the brain and spinal cord. Neural tube defects like spina bifida are among the most common and serious forms of congenital disorders, often resulting in paralysis. There are many genes known to affect neural tube closure, and she is using the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans and the frog Xenopus laevis as model systems to study how some of these genes affect cell behavior.
Dr. Sullivan-Brown is a National Institutes of Health-funded postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Biology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. More information about her research is available on the Goldstein Lab Website.