The Center for Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience is based in the Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy, and also includes members from across departments and colleges at Drexel University (and other institutes in Philadelphia), with the shared mission of elucidating the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the development and functioning of the nervous system as well as diseases, disorders and injuries of the nervous system.
RESEARCH AREAS
- Neuronal cytoskeleton
- Microtubule and actin regulation
- Molecular motor proteins
- Hereditary spastic paraplegia
- Human induced pluripotent cell derived in vitro and ex vivo models
- Gulf War Illness
- Tau and tauopathies
- Protein degradation and autophagy
- Neuronal migration
- Neurite outgrowth
- Neuronal polarity
- Axonal and dendritic development
- Autism spectrum disorders
- Spinal cord injury
- Traumatic brain injury
- Axonal transport
- Extracellular signaling
- Spine and synapse formation
- Miller-Dieker and 17p13.3 duplication syndrome
- Neurodevelopmental disorders
- Astrocyte diversity, development and modulation of synapses
Experimental model systems
- Primary cultures of rat and mouse neurons
- Mouse models for diseases of the nervous system and other transgenic mouse lines
- Human induced pluripotent cell derived neurons and cerebral organoids
- Neuronal cell lines
Figure Legend: Growth cone from a 3-day old rat hippocampal neuron in culture, expressing fluorescent actin (in purple) and fluorescent microtubule end-binding protein EB3 (in blue). The EB3 appears as comets traversing through the growth cone. (Shrobona Guha and Peter Baas)
Experimental approaches
- Live-cell imaging, including calcium imaging
- Immunocytochemistry and immunohistochemistry
- Standard molecular biological approaches including Western Blotting, RT-PCR, site-directed mutagenesis, etc.
- Single-cell RNA sequencing
- Proteomics
- Behavioral analyses on mice and rats
- Mouse molecular genetics and lineage tracing
- Super resolution microscopy
- In utero electroporation
- RNAi based knockdown and cDNA-based gene overexpression
- In vivo neuronal connectivity
- Chemogenetics and optogenetics
MEET OUR FACULTY
You can learn more about our research and current projects by visiting our individual faculty lab pages.
MEET OUR STUDENTS
Baas Lab
Kendra Case
Julie Schaub
Bridie Eckel
Toyo-oka Lab
Garcia Lab
Anh Duc (Mike) Le
Kathryn Markey
Raghupathi Lab
Cydney Martin
Taylor McCorkle
Zoe Romm
Nishell Savory
Ma Lab
Bridget Curran
Elizabeth Moese
Althea Escorce
Qiang Lab
Xiaohuan (Beanie) Sun
Neha Mohan
Victor Ogbolu
Skandha Ramakrishnan
Tom Lab
Micaela O’Reilly
Ashraful Islam
Mariah Wulf
Meet Our Senior Personnel
Wenqian Yu
Research Assistant Professor
Ying Jin
Senior Scientist, Fischer Lab
Emanuela Piermarini
Research Instructor
Julien Bouyer
Research Assistant III
Stephen Tymanskyj
Instructor, Ma Lab
Contact Us
Peter W. Baas, PhD
Director, Center for Cellular & Molecular Neuroscience
Professor, Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy
Director, Graduate Program in Neuroscience
215.991.8298
215.843.9082 (Fax)
pwb22@drexel.edu
Liang Oscar Qiang, MD, PhD
Co-director, Center for Cellular & Molecular Neuroscience
Assistant Professor, Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy
215.991.8287
215.843.9082 (Fax)
lq24@drexel.edu