Genetics

The purpose of our research is to understand the mechanisms of synapse development and homeostasis. The chemical synapse is the fundamental communication unit connecting cells in the nervous system to one another and to non-neuronal cells, and designed to mediate rapid and efficient transmission of signals across the synaptic cleft. This transmission forms the basis for the biological computations that underlie and enable our complex behavior.

The study of gene regulation is a prerequisite for understanding how cells respond appropriately to a changing environment, how they implement developmental programs, and how a defect in gene regulation can result in carcinogenesis. For many years it was thought that gene regulation involved only transcription factors and their interactions with DNA; changes in the chromatin structure of a gene were considered to be the passive consequence of the binding of these factors. However, it is now clear that chromatin structure is an integral part of the process of gene regulation.

Dr. Gisela Storz received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1988. She carried out post-doctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Sankar Adhya at the National Cancer Institute and in the laboratory of Dr. Fred Ausubel at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is currently head of the Section on Environmental Gene Regulation.

At NICHD, our central mission is to ensure that every human is born healthy. Despite much progress in understanding the many ways the mother interacts with the fetus during development, we still know little about the genetic changes that promoted the emergence of placental mammals over 100 million years ago from our egg-laying relatives, nor those mechanisms that continue drive phenotypic differences amongst mammals.

We study the cell biology of endocrine and neuroendocrine cells, focusing on the mechanisms of biosynthesis and intracellular trafficking of peptide hormones and neuropeptides and their processing enzymes, the regulation of dense-core secretory granule biogenesis, and the enzymatic and non-enzymatic roles of the prohormone processing enzyme carboxypeptidase E (CPE).