Biology Professor Receives National Science Foundation Grant to Study Brain Development During Maturation
The image shows the juvenile and adult central nervous system from a female and male fly, showing nerve cells that get reprogrammed during maturation in females but die in males.
From fruit flies to humans, every animal experiences it鈥攑uberty. Scientifically, it is known as maturation, and this coming-of-age process describes the transition from juvenile to adult life.
It is well known among the scientific community that many new brain cells result from this process, which build the circuits in the brain for adult behaviors. However, there are also cells that exist in juveniles and are reprogrammed to serve a new purpose in adulthood. Troy Shirangi, PhD, associate professor of Biology, focuses on this critical area of research and recently received a $502,563 grant from the National Science Foundation.
This reprogramming of cells鈥攁lso known as maturational reprogramming鈥攊s under researched because it is technologically challenging to find and isolate these cells. Dr. Shirangi uses fruit flies to research maturational reprogramming. Flies are great systems to study because they have genes that operate similarly to humans, interesting innate behaviors that appear after maturation, and complex brains with a relatively small number of cells.
In adulthood, fruit flies participate in elaborate, instinctual courtship and mating behaviors. Recent work in the Shirangi lab identified cells that contribute to these sex-specific behaviors, which are only present in female adults but exist during the juvenile stage in both sexes. During maturation, the cells are reprogrammed in the female flies but die in the male flies. Dr. Shirangi鈥檚 research team is working to understand how these brain cells are reprogrammed on a molecular level.
鈥淭hese cells are super interesting because they control a very specific aspect of the female fly鈥檚 reproductive behavior,鈥� says Dr. Shirangi. 鈥淲e were surprised to find that these cells are present in juvenile flies but serve a totally different purpose. During metamorphosis, which is the fly鈥檚 version of puberty, the cells get reprogrammed in females and take on a totally new role in mating behaviors. We want to figure out the genetic program that controls when and how these cells get reprogrammed during development.鈥�
Dr. Shirangi, along with his team of undergraduate student researchers, can drill down to one cell in the fly brain and conduct sophisticated genetic experiments to understand how the cell changes during development and the function it serves the fly. On example is their use of a technology called Optogenetics. Using light, the research team can turn on and off single cells in the fly brain to see how it affects the fly鈥檚 behavior. When these cells are turned off, the female fly鈥檚 mating behaviors do not play out as expected.
Dr. Shirangi鈥檚 students take a lead role in the research. Most earn authorship on research papers published by the lab in top academic journals. Some of his students stay on for a year or two as a lab technician before moving on to a graduate school鈥攁llowing for continuity in the research and additional hands-on experience for the young scientists.
鈥淢entoring such an incredible group of students in my lab at TikTok成人版 is, by far, the coolest part of my job. I get to watch them mature from consumers of knowledge as students in the classroom to producers of knowledge as young scientists in the lab.鈥�
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