Bassem Hassan
Neurogenetics
VIB Department of Molecular and Developmental Genetics, K.U.Leuven
PhD: Ohio State Univ., Ohio, USA, 96
Postdoc: HHMI/Baylor Coll. of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA, 96-01
VIB Group leader since 2001
EMBO Young Investigator, 2003
e-mail: bassem.hassan@cme.vib-kuleuven.be
phone +32 16 34 62 26
address: Campus Gasthuisberg, Herestraat 49, box 602, 6th floor, 3000 Leuven, BELGIUM
Current team members
Group leader: Bassem Hassan
Postdoctoral scientists: Xiao-Jiang Quan, Stein Aerts, Marta Koch
Ph.D. Students: Marlen Schlieder, Marion Langen, Laura Nicolaï, Alessia Soldano, Duygu Esen Ozel, Zeynep Okray
Visiting young scientists: Zhijan Chen
Support personnel: Annelies Claeys, Fatima Sharafeddine, Jiekun Yan, Martine Noblet, Natalie De Geest, Phillip Tate, Sonja Van Genechten
Science, relevant to NERF
Axons of young brain neurons have a promiscuous wanderlust! They like to travel, explore new environments, search for suitable partners and establish as many connections as they can. They cannot help it. It’s an irresistible drive. It’s in their genes, you could say! After a certain age however, they settle down, and, satisfied with the extensive network of connections they have made, stop searching for new ones. They devote their lives to their jobs, and generally perform exceptionally well, given the monumental task they have: making the formidable machine that is the organism live, behave and reproduce. This dedication however, comes at a price: the loss of their youthful sense of wanderlust. If their connections are cut, they are unable to get themselves to travel, make new connections and start all over again. Using the mighty fruit fly as a model organism, we study the genes that allow young axons to grow and establish connections. We also ask why the same axons, now older and wiser, are unable to grow again and re-establish lost connections if they are injured or struck down by disease. We combine powerful molecular genetic tools, innovative whole-brain culture approaches and high resolution imaging to search for genes and gene ensembles that control axonal growth during development. We also ask if the same genes might help injured or diseased axons to regenerate and survive.
Potential interactions with NERF
With the whole-brain long-term culture approach, we hope to offer NERF scientists an unprecedented tool to investigate the connectivity patterns of entire neuronal circuits in a fully accessible, but still largely intact, living, breathing brain. In return, NERF- with its focus on integrating nanotechnology with neuroscience- provides us a unique opportunity to probe deeper and wider into the secrets of axonal behavior. Together, we can ask living, moving and even dying axons about their activity patterns and molecular profiles at an unprecedented level of resolution.
Selected publications
- Conditional mutagenesis in Drosophila. Choi CM, Vilain S, Langen M, Van Kelst S, De Geest N, Yan J, Verstreken P, Hassan BA. Science. 2009 Apr 3;324(5923):54.
- Axonal injury and regeneration in the adult brain of Drosophila. Ayaz D, Leyssen M, Koch M, Yan J, Srahna M, Sheeba V, Fogle KJ, Holmes TC, Hassan BA. J Neurosci. 2008 Jun 4;28(23):6010-21.
- A signaling network for patterning of neuronal connectivity in the Drosophila brain. Srahna M, Leyssen M, Choi CM, Fradkin LG, Noordermeer JN, Hassan BA. PLoS Biol. 2006 Oct;4(11):e348.
Visit the VIB website for more details.
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