Tamily Weissman-Unni Receives Murdock Life Sciences Grant

The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust has awarded the College $54,482 in support of Tamily Weissman’ s research project, “Mapping neuronal circuitry in the cerebellum using multicolor fluorescent ‘Brainbow’ zebrafish.”  “Brainbow” labels cells in different colors so that components of entire circuits in the brain can be seen. This grant will help Dr. Weissman, Assistant Professor of Biology, and her undergraduate students use the “Brainbow” labeling technique in the cerebellum of living zebrafish, which will enable them to test two fundamental hypotheses about the development and function of a complex neural circuit. Dr. Weissman indicates that Zebrafish, a well-established genetic system, are an ideal model organism to use for imaging studies of neural development. As such, their research findings may have additional implications for the study of brain function, which could ultimately provide important insights into causes and possible treatments of several debilitating diseases. More information about “Brainbow” and Dr. Weissman’s research is available at: http://college.lclark.edu/faculty/members/tamily_weissman-unni/
More information about the Murdock College Research Program for Life Sciences program, which provided this support, is available here. March 2012