CANCELLD! Alex Gould (Francis Crick Institute)

Nutritional stress and neural stem cells

Host: Christian Klämbt

In the real world, humans and other animals often develop in environments with suboptimal nutrition. In this context, the growth of key developing organs is prioritized at the expense of others, a process known as organ sparing. It has been clear for many decades that one of the most highly spared organs is the brain, and work in our lab has sought to identify the cellular and molecular mechanisms responsible. In Drosophila, the proliferation of neural stem cells, which generate all neurons and glia, is remarkably resistant to nutrient restriction and other metabolic stresses. Recently, we found that brain sparing during nutritional stress is driven by metabolic interactions between neural stem cells, their niche and the blood-brain barrier. We are also developing new tools for tagging and tracing metabolism at single-cell resolution in order to try and understand brain sparing with greater precision. Alex Gould FRS is a Principal Group Leader at The Francis Crick Institute in London. His research aims to understand how early-life environmental stresses affect the metabolism and physiology of the developing brain.

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