Date: Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Location: 46-3002 (Singleton Auditorium) and YouTube Stream (https://youtube.com/live/4vzPAvJGbfo)

Speaker: Sundari Chetty, Ph.D.

Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Center for Regenerative Medicine, MGH;  Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Principle Faculty Member, Harvard Stem Cell Institute

Host: Dr. Dara Manoach

Talk title: Modeling brain overgrowth in autism using human pluripotent stem cells

Bio & Abstract: Dr. Sundari Chetty is an assistant professor at the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.  She also serves as a Principal Faculty member of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.  Dr. Chetty received her PhD in neuroscience and B.A. in molecular and cellular biology from the University of California, Berkeley.  Dr. Chetty started her lab at Stanford University after completing her postdoctoral work in Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University in Douglas Melton's laboratory.  In June of 2022, she relocated her laboratory to MGH.  

The overarching goal of Dr. Chetty’s lab is to understand the mechanisms underlying neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia, and identify novel therapeutic targets based on these mechanistic insights. In particular, her lab has been investigating the mechanisms underlying brain overgrowth or undergrowth in these disorders using human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology. Using human iPSCs from idiopathic patients as well as those with known genetic variations, the Chetty lab uses two-dimensional and brain organoid models to investigate changes at the cellular, functional, and mechanistic levels using a broad range of techniques from RNA sequencing, genome editing, to functional assays in in vitro and in vivo models. This talk will highlight recent work in the Chetty lab investigating how interactions between the neuroimmune system regulate brain overgrowth in autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.