Faculty

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Greg J. Bashaw, Ph.D.

Professor of Neuroscience

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Department: Neuroscience

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1f Graduate Group Affiliations 8

46 Contact information
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Department of Neuroscience
27 135A Clinical Research Building
32 415 Curie Blvd.
Philadelphia, PA 19104

2e Office: 215 898-0829
32 Fax: 215 573-7601
32 Lab: 215-898-0854
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Email:
gbashaw@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

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18 Publications
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26 Search PubMed for articles c

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13 Education:
21 9 B.A. 14 (Biology) c
29 Brown University, 1990.
21 a Ph.D. 20 (Biological Sciences) c
41 Stanford University, Mentor: Bruce Baker, 1997.
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Links
98 Search PubMed for articles
40 Neuroscience graduate group faculty webpage.
44 Cell and Molecular Biology graduate group webpage.
61 Bashaw Lab Website
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5 3 3 90 Permanent link
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b6 > Perelman School of Medicine > Faculty > Details a

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Description of Research Expertise

2a Research Interests
5f - Molecular mechanisms of axon growth and guidance during nervous system development.
91 - How axon guidance receptors specify attractive and repulsive signals and transmit these signals to mediate cyotoskeletal rearrangement.
53 - Non-canonical roles for guidance receptors as transcriptional regulators.
35 - Formation of Neural Circuits at the Midline
3e - Transcriptional Regulation of Neuronal Morphogenesis
2a - Generation of Neuronal Diversity
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96 Key words: Axon guidance, developmental neuroscience, circuit assembly, Slit, Robo, Netrin, DCC, receptor signaling, Drosophila, Mouse.
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26 Description of Research
2af How axons in the developing nervous system successfully navigate to their correct targets is a fundamental problem in neurobiology. Understanding the mechanisms that mediate axon guidance will give important insight into how the nervous system is correctly wired during development and may have implications for therapeutic approaches to developmental brain disorders and nerve regeneration. Achieving this understanding will require unraveling the molecular logic that ensures the proper expression and localization of axon guidance cues and receptors, and elucidating the signaling events that regulate the growth cone cytoskeleton in response to guidance receptor activation.
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31b The Slit ligand and Roundabout (Robo) receptors, and the Netrin ligand and DCC/UNC5 receptors are two important evolutionary conserved ligand/receptor systems that contribute to proper connectivity in both the vertebrate and invertebrate nervous systems. These molecules are also known to influence neuronal and mesodermal cell migration, suggesting that determining their function may have broad implications for understanding diseases of nervous system development, many of which have their root in defective cell migration and/or axon guidance. The research in my laboratory addresses the dynamics of axon guidance receptor expression and signaling, and exploits the powerful genetic and molecular approaches available in the developing Drosophila embryonic CNS and Mouse Spinal Cord.
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21 Rotation Projects
f0 A range of projects relating to axon guidance receptor regulation and signaling, employing a broad range of techniques in genetics, molecular biology, cell biology, imaging and biochemistry. For specific projects contact Dr. Bashaw.
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26 Current Lab Personnel:
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36 Kate Laws, Ph.D., PennPORT Postdoctoral Fellow
42 Camila Barrios-Camacho Ph.D., PennPORT Postdoctoral Fellow
37 Samantha Russell, CAMB Graduate Student (DSRB)
34 Karina Chaudhari, CAMB Graduate Student(CPM)
2f Yixin Zang, CAMB Graduate Student(DSRB)
34 Kelly Sullivan, CAMB Graduate Student (DSRB)
2e Maya Hale, CAMB Graduate Student(DSRB)
31 Sarah Gagnon, CAMB Graduate Student(DSRB)
3a Chloé Potter, Research Specialist and Lab Manager
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23 Recent Lab Alumnae:
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8e Edward Waddell, Ph.D. PennPORT Postdoctoral Fellow 2019-2021. Current Position: Assistant Professor of Biology, Holy Family University
b4 Madhavi Gorla, Ph.D., Post-doctoral Fellow 2015-2020. Current Position: INSPIRE Faculty Fellow, Assistant Professor Jawaharlal Nehru Technical University, Hyderabad, India.
82 Elise Arbeille, Ph.D., Post-doctoral Fellow 2014-2018. Current Position: Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Marseilles
77 Celine Santiago, Ph.D. 2016, DRSB. Current Position: Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard, Ginty Lab, K Award Recipient
79 Melissa Hernandez-Fleming, Ph.D. 2016, NGG. Current Position: Technical Sales Specialist, ThermoFisher Scientific
6a Rebecca Chance, Ph.D. 2015, NGG. Current Position: Translational Scientist, INCYTE Pharmaceuticals
4e Alexandra Neuhaus-Follini, Ph.D. 2015, NGG. Merit Review Officer PCORI
67 Mike O'Donnell, Ph.D. 2012, CAMB. Current Position: Assistant Professor of MCB, Yale University
7e Timothy Evans, Ph.D. 2013 Postdoctoral Fellow. Current Position: Associate Professor of Biology, University of Arkansas
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Description of Other Expertise

20 Outreach
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1ae In addition to our research program, students and postdoctoral fellows in the lab contribute to a science education outreach project designed to enhance scientific aptitude and literacy in Philadelphia public high schools. This project is funded by the National Science Foundation (IOS-1355181)and was developed in partnership with Dr. Jamie Shuda. We are in our fourth year of the program and a brief description follows.
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1f Project Overview
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38e Over the last ten years, local under-served and impoverished school systems have increasingly felt the burden of lack of funding and limited resources for science education. The School District of Philadelphia has seen historic lay offs and crippling budget cuts. It is because of these challenges that we are developing a science outreach program. Using an established and successful outreach program called Project BioEYES (www.bioeyes.org) as the foundation of our work, we will (1) host one high school teacher per year for a 6-week summer research position; (2) develop a set of classroom curricula focused on using flies to create modules designed to foster an understanding of neuronal development and the relationship between genes and behavior; and (3) evaluate student learning and enthusiasm for the classroom science experiments and teachers’ overall experience in our outreach project.
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25 Participating Teachers
3b Winnie Chan, Furness High School (Summer 2015-2017)
37 Galeet Cohen, Central High School (Summer 2017)
39 Bob Herbstritt, Central High School (Summer 2016)
37 Elizabeth Curry, Sayre High School (Summer 2014)
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Selected Publications

10a Chaudhari K., Gorla M., Chang C., Kania A., Bashaw G.J.: Robo recruitment of the Wave regulatory complex plays an essential and conserved role in midline repulsion. eLife 10:e64474, April 2021.

13e Gorla M, Santiago C, Chaudhari K, Layman AAK, Oliver PM, Bashaw GJ.: Ndfip Proteins Target Robo Receptors for Degradation and Allow Commissural Axons to Cross the Midline in the Developing Spinal Cord. Cell Reports 26(12): 3298-3312, March 2019.

10a Melissa Hernandez-Fleming, Ethan Rohrbach and Greg J. Bashaw: Sema-1a reverse signaling promotes midline crossing in response to secreted Semaphorins. Cell Reports 18(1): 174-184, January 2017.

105 Celine Santiago and Greg J. Bashaw: Islet coordinately regulates motor axon guidance and dendrite targeting through the Frazzled/DCC receptor. Cell Reports 18(7): 1646-1659, February 2017.

11d Alexandra Neuhaus-Follini and Greg J. Bashaw: The Intracellular Domain of the Frazzled/DCC Receptor Is a Transcription Factor Required for Commissural Axon Guidance. Neuron. Elsevier, 87(4): 751-763, August 2015.

153 Timothy A. Evans, Celine Santiago, Elise Arbeille and Greg J. Bashaw: Robo2 acts in trans to inhibit Slit-Robo1 repulsion in pre-crossing commissural axons. eLife. eLife Sciences,(doi: 10.7554/eLife.08407), 1-25, July 2015 Notes: The following authors contributed equally to this work 23 Timothy A. Evans, Celine Santiago 14

148 Rebecca K. Chance and Greg J. Bashaw: Slit-dependent endocytic trafficking of the Robo receptor is required for Son of Sevenless recruitment and midline axon repulsion. PLoS Genetics. PLoS, Page: 1-27, September 2015 Notes: See Perspective by Frederic Charron PLoS Genetics 46 11(9): e1005441. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1005441.

170 Aref Arzan Zarin, Jamshid Asadzadeh1, Karsten Hokamp, Daniel McCartney, Long Yang, Greg J. Bashaw and Juan-Pablo Labrador: A Transcription Factor Network Coordinates Attraction, Repulsion, and Adhesion Combinatorially to Control Motor Axon Pathway Selection. Neuron 81(6): 1297-1311, March 2014.

121 Celine Santiago, Juan-Pablo Labrador and Greg J. Bashaw: The homeodomain transcription factor Hb9 controls axon guidance in Drosophila through the regulation of Robo receptors. Cell Reports 7(1): 153-165. April 2014.

106 Michael O'Donnell and Greg J. Bashaw: Src inhibits midline axon crossing independent of Frazzled/DCC receptor tyrosine phosphorylation. Journal of Neuroscience 33(1): 305-314, January 2013.

ec Long Yang, David S. Garbe and Greg J. Bashaw: A frazzled/DCC-dependent transcriptional switch regulates midline axon guidance. Science 324(5929): 944-7, May 2009.

f9 Timothy A. Evans and Greg J. Bashaw: Functional Diversity of Robo Receptor Immunoglobulin Domains Promotes Distinct Axon Guidance Decisions. Current Biology 20(6), March 2010.

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