Anita Bhattacharyya, PHD
Position title: Assistant Professor, Cell and Regenerative Biology
Email: bhattacharyy@waisman.wisc.edu
Phone: 608-265-6142
- Organ System/Disease Focus:
- Nervous system, developmental disorders
- Aligned Research Focus:
- Basic stem cell science, drug discovery and testing
News Releases:
- New Study Reveals Changes in Key Pathway in Down Syndrome; June 21, 2022
- Stem cell project to create new model to study brain development and Down syndrome; October 11, 2021
- Down syndrome neurons grown from stem cells show signature problems; May 27, 2013
More information:
Videos:
Research Description:
My research examines how brain development is altered in individuals with developmental disabilities. I am using human pluripotent stem cells to study the formation of the cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex is the most complex area of the brain and is responsible for functions unique to humans, such as language and abstract thought. Problems with any of the cerebral cortex’s crucial development steps can lead to intellectual disability.
My goal is to use stem cells to examine the alterations that occur in cortical development in Down syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome and autism. These studies will not only shed light on brain development in these developmental disorders but will help our understanding of human brain development in general.
Selected References:
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- Giffin-Rao Y, Sheng J, Strand B, Xu K, Huang L, Medo M, Risgaard KA, Dantinne S, Mohan S, Keshan A, Daley RA Jr, Levesque B, Amundson L, Reese R, Sousa AMM, Tao Y, Wang D, Zhang SC, Bhattacharyya A*. Altered patterning of trisomy 21 interneuron progenitors. Stem Cell Reports. 2022 May 17:S2213-6711(22)00209-0. doi: 10.1016/j.stemcr.2022.05.001. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35623352.
- Risgaard K, Sorci I, Mohan S, Bhattacharyya A*. Meta-analysis of in vivo Down syndrome cortical development reveals underdeveloped state of the science. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience 2022 June 16. DOI=10.3389/fncel.2022.915272.
- Anderson NC, Chen PF, Meganathan K, Afshar Saber W, Petersen AJ, Bhattacharyya A*, Kroll K*, Sahin M*.; (2021) Cross-IDDRC Human Stem Cell Working Group. Balancing serendipity and reproducibility: Pluripotent stem cells as experimental systems for intellectual and developmental disorders. Stem Cell Reports. 2021. PMID: 33861989; DOI: 10.1016/j.stemcr.2021.03.025
- Zhao X* and Bhattacharyya A*. The need for human models to study human neurodevelopmental disorders (2018). AJHG 103(6): 829-857. PMCID: PMC6288051
- Weick JP, Held DL, Bonadurer GF 3rd, Doers ME, Liu Y, Maguire C, Clark A, Knackert JA, Molinarolo K, Musser M, Yao L, Yin Y, Lu J, Zhang X, Zhang SC, Bhattacharyya A*. Deficits in human trisomy 21 iPSCs and neurons. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Jun 11;110(24):9962-7. PubMed PMCID: PMC3683748.