Dr. Goldowitz's lab studies how genetic signals involved in the early development of the nervous system can cause neurodegenerative disease and brain disorders in children and adults. By understanding how the brain develops and is built, he will also be able understand how brain disorders develop. A major focus of his work is the application of molecular and bioinformatic technologies to study the entire gene regulatory network of the cerebellum, which is an area of the brain that is linked to autism, schizophrenia, mental retardation, and other brain disorders.

In his talk today, Dr. Goldowitz will speak about three sets of experiments that have emerged from the initial analyses of their time series data and will provide novel views on the molecular and cellular determinants of cerebellar progenitor populations. These will begin at 3 levels of analysis: 1) from the discovery of a previously unrecognized and striking cerebellar phenotype when Pax6 is deleted, 2) from the discovery of a new molecular player in early cerebellar development, Wls, and 3) from using the time series database to generate new hypotheses about molecular players in cerebellar development and to test these hypotheses with RNA-knockdown studies.