Neurodevelopmental Disorders

1. Modeling neurodevelopmental deficits in Tuberous Sclerosis Complex with stem cell-derived neural precursors and neurons.- 2. Advances in human stem cells and genome editing to understand and develop treatment for Fragile X syndrome.- 3. IPSC MODELS OF CHROMOSOME 15Q IMPRINTING DISORDERS:  FROM DISEASE MODELING TO THERAPEUTIC STRATEGIES.- 4. Creating iPSC based models to understand the signaling and cellular phenotypes in idiopathic autism and 16p11.2 derived neurons.- 5. Dysregulation of Neurite Outgrowth and Cell Migration in Autism and other Neurodevelopmental Disorders.- 6. Investigation of Schizophrenia with Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells.- 7. Modeling Inflammation on Neurodevelopmental disorders using pluripotent stem cells.- 8. Astrocyte-derived exosomes in an iPSC model of bipolar disorder.- 9. Two- and there-dimensional stem cell models to define mechanisms underlying psychiatric disorders.- 10. Development of a 3-D organoid system using human induced pluripotent stem cells to model idiopathic autism.

Emanuel DiCicco-Bloom, M.D. is Professor of Neuroscience and Cell Biology and Pediatrics (Child Neurology & Neurodevelopmental Disabilities) at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) in New Jersey and a member of graduate programs in Cell & Developmental Biology, Neuroscience, and Toxicology at Rutgers University. He graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University, received his M.D. from then Cornell University Medical College, and trained in Pediatrics and Neurology at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, joining RWJMS in 1990.
Dr. DiCicco-Bloom has broad experience performing basic and translational research on neurodevelopmental disorders including animal models and human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPCSs). As an active child neurologist, his research focuses on defining molecular and cellular pathways that regulate production of neuronal cells (neurogenesis) during brain development, and how related abnormalities contribute to developmental disorders including autism. He investigates how growth signals, genetic factors, and environmental toxins impact cell proliferation, survival, and fate determination during brain development using rat and mouse neural stem cells in culture and in vivo, with a focus on the cerebral cortex, cerebellum, and hippocampus. To begin defining mechanisms that are more directly relevant to human disorders, recent collaborative studies with Co-Editor James H. Millonig, Ph.D. have focused on creating human induced neural stem cells (NPCs) from people with autism, to determine their neurobiological signatures. Significantly, by comparing NPCs from two forms of autism, including idiopathic and genetically defined (CNV 16p11.2 Deletion Syndrome), these studies reveal a common neurobiological phenotype consisting of reduced neural process outgrowth and cell migration in autism compared to control NPCs. Moreover dysregulation of the mTOR signaling pathway appears to be central to these phenotypes, as pathway