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Laura Gammill, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development E-mail: gammi001@umn.edu

Research Interests:

Neural crest cells are embryonic stem cells that arise in the developing vertebrate central nervous system.  Unlike other neural cell types, neural crest cells become disconnected from their neighbors and migrate over long distances throughout the embryo to form surprisingly diverse derivatives, including the peripheral nervous system, pigment cells, the outflow tract of the heart, and the craniofacial skeleton.  The goal of the Gammill laboratory is to elucidate the molecular mechanisms regulating neural crest formation, migration, and guidance.  In other words, how do neural crest cells acquire the ability to migrate, how is their multipotency maintained, and how do they know where to go?

With a gene expression profile of a newly induced neural crest cell as a starting point, we are characterizing candidate early neural crest regulators in chick and mouse embryos using a variety of approaches. These include manipulating chick embryos by injection (dyes or cells), graft (tissues or beads), or electroporation (DNA or oligonucleotides), culturing chick and mouse embryonic tissue explants, and creating and analyzing mouse mutants.  This combination of organisms and techniques allows us to exploit the advantages of each system toward a clearer understanding of early neural crest development. 

Selected Publications:

(For a comprehensive list of recent publications, refer to PubMed, a service provided by the National Library of Medicine.)

Gammill, L.S., Gonzalez, C., Bronner-Fraser, M. (2007). Neuropilin 2/semaphorin 3F signaling is essential for cranial neural crest migration and trigeminal ganglion condensation. Dev. Neurobiol. 67(1): 47-56.

Gammill, L.S. , Gonzalez, C., Gu, C., Bronner-Fraser, M. (2006). Guidance of trunk neural crest migration requires neuropilin 2/semaphorin 3F signaling. Development , 133, 99-106 .

Coles, E.G., Gammill, L.S. , Miner, J.H., Bronner-Fraser, M. (2006). Abnormalities in neural crest migration in laminin a 5 mutant mice. Dev. Biol. , 289, 218-228 .

Gammill, L.S. and Bronner-Fraser, M. (2003). Neural crest specification: migrating into genomics. Nat Rev Neurosci. , 4(10):795-805.

Gammill, L.S. and Bronner-Fraser, M. (2002). Genomic analysis of neural crest induction. Development , 129, 5731-5741.