CCMT Lecture Series: Building, Breaking and Repairing Neuromuscular Synapses

The Raymond G. Perelman Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics presents a Lecture Series: 

Building, Breaking and Repairing Neuromuscular Synapses

Speaker:

Steven J. Burden, PhD

Professor and Co-coordinator

Molecular Neurobiology Program, Skirball Institute

Neuroscience Department, NYU Medical School

Description of Research:

The neuromuscular synapse controls our ability to move, eat, speak and breathe. As such, it is considered the single synapse essential for life. This synapse is composed of three cell types: the presynaptic motor nerve terminal, the postsynaptic muscle fiber, and terminal Schwann cells. A coordinated and complex interplay of signals between these cells controls the formation, maturation and maintenance of the synapse, ensuring for robust and reliable synaptic transmission. The key players for building the synapse include the motor neuron-derived signal, Agrin, its muscle receptor, Lrp4, the transducing receptor tyrosine kinase, MuSK, and Dok-7, which binds MuSK and stabilizes MuSK phosphorylation. Dr. Burden’s laboratory has made seminal contributions to the current understanding of the signaling pathways for synapse formation, including the discovery of Agrin, Lrp4 and MuSK. Dr. Burden will describe how this signaling pathway stimulates presynaptic and postsynaptic differentiation, how defects in this pathway cause neuromuscular disease, and a therapeutic strategy, derived from the understanding of this signaling pathway, to treat neuromuscular diseases.

Host: Yuanquan Song, PhD

Please e-mail songy2@chop.edu if you would like to meet with the speaker.