"Wiring the Brain Via Eph-Ephrin Bidirectional Signaling"

Dr. Henkemeyer is a Dick and Martha Brooks Associate Professor of Developmental Biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.The primary goal of his laboratory is to understand the biochemical signals that regulate cell-cell interactions during embryonic development. They focus on a large group of transmembrane receptor tyrosine kinases known as the Eph receptors and their activating ligands, which are termed Ephrins. The Ephrin ligands are also membrane-anchored and we now know that they too are able to act like a receptor to transduce signals into their own cell. Thus, when a cell expressing an Eph receptor contacts a cell expressing an Ephrin ligand, novel bidirectional signals are transduced into both the Eph receptor-expressing cell (forward signaling) and the Ephrin ligand-expressing cell (reverse signaling). In general, Eph-Ephrin bidirectional signals are known to regulate contact-mediated repulsion-type cellular movements such as those utilized by the axon growth cone during neural pathfinding.

To learn more, please visit his website: www8.utsouthwestern.edu/utsw/cda/dept24916/files/72388.html.

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