Date: Friday, December 6,  2024
Time: 12:00pm – 1:00pm
Location: Simons Center Conference room 46-6011 + Zoom (https://mit.zoom.us/j/92275778173)

Speaker: Dr. Francisco Garcia
Affiliation: Postdoctoral Associate, Myriam Heiman Lab, PILM, MIT

Talk title: Distinct glio-vascular interactions and contributions to cerebrovascular function
Abstract: With advances in single cell technologies, it is now possible to define molecular profiles for distinct populations of cells in the brain. However, cells that comprise the cerebrovasculature have been historically difficult to capture until recently. In our work, we have developed methods for capturing cerebrovascular cell types for single-nucleus RNA sequencing (snRNA-seq) from both mouse and human brains. In doing so, we have identified a subpopulation of astrocytes that exhibits a distinct gene expression signature more closely associated with vascular function. In this seminar, I will discuss our on-going efforts to characterize these vasculature-coupled astrocytes (vc-astrocytes) in both mice and humans as well as their possible roles in brain homeostasis.