Balice-Gordon Lab
People
P.I.
Rita Balice-Gordon completed undergraduate work at Northwestern University, graduate work at the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in Zoology and Neurobiology from the University of Texas at Austin, in Dr. Wesley Thompson's laboratory. She completed a postdoctoral fellowhip at Washington University School of Medicine, in Dr. Jeffrey Lichtman's laboratory. In 1994, she joined the faculty of the Dept. of Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, becoming tenured in 2000 and Professor in 2005. Dr. Balice-Gordon is currently the Chair of Penn’s Neuroscience Graduate Group. She and her laboratory study how connections are made and maintained in the developing brain, and how this process is impaired in neurodevelopmental and other disorders that affect cognition and behavior. She is the recipient of numerous honors, has given more than 100 invited research talks around the world, serves on NIH study sections, on national and international committees, and on the editorial board of several leading scientific journals. She is married and has three children.
email: rbaliceg@mail.med.upenn.edu
phone: (215) 898-1037
Research Associates
Marion Scott is interested in the molecular mechanisms of neuromuscular development with a focus on neuromuscular diseases. She earned a B.A. in Biology from Franklin and Marshall College in 1975, and did graduate work in Human Biology at the University of Kansas in 1978. When Marion first started working at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1979, she examined the role that the then newly identified protein, dystrophin, plays in the pathogenesis of muscular dystrophy and its potential utility for gene therapy. Marion continued her interest in neuromuscular development by studying other molecular aspects of muscle physiology. She joined the Balice-Gordon Lab in 2000, where she provides expert research supervision and technical guidance on a wide variety of molecular and genetic approaches in several ongoing projects within the lab in both zebrafish and mice. She is married and has two children.
email: mos@mail.med.upenn.edu
phone: (215) 898-3575
Amy Kugath is interested animal development. Her background is in Biology and Psychology. Amy attended the University of Utah, Delaware County Community College and Immaculata College and earned an Associate’s Degree in Biology from Delaware County Community College. She joined the Balice-Gordon lab in September 200, and she is responsible for all of the lab’s zebrafish husbandry and breeding. She provides expert technical guidance to lab members working on zebrafish research projects, specializing in injecting single-cell embryos to generate transgenic and morphant zebrafish, whole embryo in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry. Amy has several cats and a puppy, Albus.
email: akugath@mail.med.upenn.edu
phone: (215) 898-3575; zebrafish room (215) 898-0978
Graduate Students
Xiaoyu Peng is interested in the development of synaptic function and plasticity. She earned a B.S. degree in Biology from Peking University in China. She is a Ph.D. candidate in the Biology Graduate group, joining the program in 2004 and the Balice-Gordon lab in early 2006. Xiaoyu’s work focuses on the cellular and molecular mechanisms that shape the neurotransmitter release properties of presynaptic terminals along the axon of individual neurons. She uses embryonic rodent hippocampal neurons expressing Synaptophysin-pHluorin, a pH sensitive GFP molecule that allows optical measurements of synaptic vesicle recycling, to assess the functional properties of presynaptic terminals both spatially and temporally during development.
email: xiaoyup@sas.upenn.edu
phone: (215) 898-3575
Emilia Moscato is currently a second year student in the Neuroscience Graduate Group.
email: emiliam@mail.med.upenn.edu
phone: (215) 898-3575
Ankit Jain is currently a first year CD student in the Neuroscience Graduate Group.
email: ankj@mail.med.upenn.edu
phone: (215) 898-3575
Jozsef Meszaros is rotating through the lab while he finishes his third year of law school at Penn. Having been exposed to the study of neuroscience while earning his undergraduate degrees in neurophysiology and physics at the University of Maryland, Jozsef joined the lab in order to obtain hands-on experience in a wet-lab setting. Currently, he is using Golgi staining to assess differences in neuronal morphology and dendritic spine density between hippcampal neurons of healthy and pathological subjects. Outside of the lab, Jozsef does pro bono work at a legal non-profit organization, where he examines how scientific evidence may be used to procure positive legal outcomes for victim-defendants in cases involving intimate partner violence.
email: jozsef@law.upenn.edu
phone: (215) 898-3575
Postdoctoral Fellows
Julie McGurk, Ph.D. earned a B.S. in Neuroscience from the University of Pittsburgh. There she received a summer research fellowship to work in the laboratory of Alan Sved, Ph.D., stuyding the neuronal circuitry regulating blood pressure, and completed an honors thesis in the Sved lab as well. Her graduate work was completed at Johns Hopkins University in the laboratory of Guo-li Ming, M.D., Ph.D., where she studied mechanisms of plasticity at developing neuromuscular junctions. She joined the Balice-Gordon lab in September, 2009, and is studying how astrocytes selectively inhibitory neuron maturation and synapse formation. Julie is a fellow in the Penn-PORT program. She is married and has a daughter.
email: mcgurk@mail.med..upenn.edu
phone: (215) 898-3575
Chris R. Hayworth, Ph.D., joined the lab in September, 2009. He earned a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Montana, and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience in 2006 from the University of Texas at Austin, under the direction of Dr. Wesley Thompson, where he investigated the molecular mechanisms that prompt Schwann cells to take on their “reactive” phenotype following peripheral nerve injury. Chris went on to do a postdoctoral fellowship in the Consortium for Behavioral Neuroscience, under the guidance of Dr. Francisco Gonzalez-Lima, where he investigated the effects of novel redox agents in promoting cellular energy metabolism. Chris joined the Balice-Gordon lab in September, 2009, and is studying the structural and functional changes in presynaptic terminals during activity-dependent competition at developing neuromuscular synapses. He is married, and his wife is a postdoctoral fellow at Penn.
email: hayworth@mail.med..upenn.edu
phone: (215) 898-3575