Adult Mammalian Brain Stem Cells – Techniques and Research Approaches

TOPICAL COLLECTIONS

Guest Editors

Ashley Webb

Brown University

Dr. Ashley Webb received her BSc from McGill University and her PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Washington in 2007. She did her postdoctoral work at Stanford University, where she began investigating the genome-wide transcriptional mechanisms underlying neural stem cell homeostasis during aging.

Kristy Townsend

The Ohio State University, Wexner Medical Center, Department of Neurological Surgery

Kristy Townsend holds a PhD in Neuroscience and is currently PI of the Neurobiology and Energy Balance Laboratory and Associate Professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery at The Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center. Townsend's research focuses on how adult neural plasticity (both in the brain and in peripheral nerves innervating adipose tissues) impact the maintenance of energy balance, and how these processes become dysregulated in conditions like neurodegeneration, peripheral neuropathy, obesity, and diabetes. Specifically related to this collection, the Townsend Lab investigates novel populations of adult stem cells in the brain, and how they behave in response to changing metabolic states.

Collection Overview

This collection focuses on mammalian adult brain stem cell techniques and research approaches, with the goal of providing detailed protocol videos that allow researchers to utilize cutting-edge, rigorous methods to investigate this population of adult tissue stem cells. In order for the collection to be comprehensive, protocols or link to other collections that have a similar focus can be drawn. The goal is to cover in vitro and in vivo techniques, including but not limited to: brain dissociation and isolation of brain stem cells (by FACS and other approaches), brain stem cell neurosphere culture and differentiation, in vitro and in vivo label retention assays, in vivo lineage tracing of stem cells with transgenic mouse lines, assessing stem cell quiescence, stem cell mitochondrial bioenergetics, etc.