Neural Stem Cell Institute, Rensselaer NY

Stem cell research and applications in the treatment of diseases like Retinitis Pigmentosis, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Spinal Cord Injury, Retinal Degeneration. Home of SallyTemple's lab.

Rebecca Chowdhury, Ph.D.

Dr. Chowdhury’s research goal is to understand the mechanisms through which RNA-binding proteins control RNA localization, stability, and assembly, and the contribution of these processes to neurodegeneration. During her graduate studies as a Ph.D. student in Dr. Jeffrey Trimarchi’s lab, she  worked on understanding how specific intrinsic factors control cell fate decisions and neuronal maturation processes in the retina. Atoh7 is a highly conserved transcription factor that is essential for retinal ganglion cell development and labels a subset of cells in the developing retina that are progressing from a progenitor to a differentiated state. Dr. Chowdhury performed transcriptome profiling of Atoh7+ individual cells isolated from mouse retina, thereby obtaining a wealth of information about how distinct types of retinal neurons are produced. She also carried out functional studies in the mouse, and using CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing, in zebrafish. Currently, she is working on elucidating the many roles of Stau2, an RNA-binding protein in different aspects of brain development and function.

Publications:

  1. Chowdhury R., Laboissonniere L.A., Wester A.K, Muller M., Trimarchi J.M. The Trim family of genes and the retina: Expression and functional characterization. PLoS ONE 13(9): e0202867. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0202867 (2018).
  2. Chowdhury R., Laboissonniere L.A., Goetz J.J., Ellson L., Fru D., Wester A., Stadler M.B., Trimarchi J.M., Cepko C.L. Single cell profiling of developing retinal cells that express Atoh7. Under review.
  3. Laboissonniere LA, Smith CL, Mesenbrink J, Chowdhury R, Burney A, Lang M, et al. ALS-associated genes display CNS expression in the developing zebrafish. Gene Expr Patterns [Internet]. 2018; 30:14–31 doi: 10.1016/j.gep.2018.08.003 (2018).
  4. Mullally M., Albrecht C., Horton M., Laboissonniere L., Goetz J.J, Chowdhury R., Manning A., Wester, A., Bose, Q., and Trimarchi J.M. Expression Profiling of Developing Zebrafish Retinal Cells. Zebrafish 1–10 doi:10.1089/zeb.2015.1184 (2016).
  5. Goetz J.J., Farris C., Chowdhury R., and Trimarchi J.M. Onecut1 and Onecut2 Play Critical Roles in the Development of the Mouse Retina. PLoS ONE 9(12): e115786. doi: 10.1371/ journal.pone.0115786 (2014).
  6. Goetz J.J., Farris C., Chowdhury R., and Trimarchi J.M. Making of a retinal cell: insights into retinal cell-fate determination. Int Rev Cell Mol Biol 308, 273-321. (2014).
  7. Marathe S., Chowdhury R., Bhattacharya R., Nagarajan A., Chakravortty D. Direct detection of Salmonella without pre-enrichment in milk, ice-cream and fruit juice by PCR against hilA gene. Food Control. doi:10.1016/j.foodcont.2011.08.005 (2011)