Achievement

IGERT trainee Jennifer Baker conducted research with three separate research groups to investigate the gene, GRIN3A. The purpose of the work was to determine whether primates share similar constraints in their developmental expression pattern of this gene, which is implicated in synaptic plasticity. Frozen tissue was collected under the direction of Chet Sherwood, PI, at the Laboratory for Evolutionary Neuroanatomy at The George Washington University. In order to analyze the GRIN3A expression in the neocortex of primates the RNA was analyzed using qPCR at the GW Institute for Neuroscience Biomarkers Analysis and Discovery Core, under the direction of Thomas Maynard, PI. Finally, the comparative genomic analysis of this material took place under the direction of Derek Wildman, PI, of the Center for Molecular Medicine & Genetics at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, MI.