Zuchero Lab

Glia are a frontier of neuroscience, and overwhelming evidence from the last decade shows that they are essential regulators of all aspects of the nervous system. The Zuchero Lab aims to uncover how myelinating glial cells regulate neural development, tune circuits via myelin dynamics, and contribute to diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS) and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD).

Myelin, once thought to simply be fatty insulation around axons, is now known to play a fundamental role in maintaining healthy neurological function through metabolic support and circuit tuning. Despite the critical role of oligodendrocytes, the myelinating cells of the central nervous system, and Schwann Cells of the peripheral nervous system, fundamental questions remain unanswered:

• How do myelinating glia develop their highly specialized morphologies and interact with neurons to control nervous system development and function?
• What cellular mechanisms allow oligodendrocytes to respond to neuronal activity or experience to dynamically tune myelin in the adult brain?
• How are these cellular mechanisms disrupted in neurodegenerative and demyelinating diseases like Alzheimer's disease and MS? Answering this question may allow us to better protect or repair myelin in disease and aging.
• What other important functions of myelinating glia remain undiscovered?

By bringing cutting-edge cell biology techniques to the study of myelinating glial cells, we aim to uncover how they help sculpt and regulate the nervous system and test their potential as novel, untapped therapeutic targets for disease and injury.

Lab Values Statement

The Zuchero lab is committed to creating equitable and inclusive access to science and research training. Our group aims to center mentorship, collaboration, diversity, rigor, and ethical science. We strive to build a lab environment where each member can thrive, pursue one’s own interests, and excel personally and professionally. We believe that diversity of thought and lived experience is not only beneficial but critical for the advancement of science.

Tool Development

We’re building tools for the whole research community 

In the Zuchero Lab, we are pioneering tools and methods to propel research into myelin, glia, and cellular neuroscience more broadly. Projects range from creating novel genetic tools to visualize and perturb key cellular mechanisms in oligodendrocytes or other cell types, to innovative strategies to boost the expression of genetic constructs for each cell type in the nervous system, to using AI to accelerate and increase the rigor of image analysis of myelinated axons and oligodendrocytes. Check out some of the genetic tools we have created and shared freely on Addgene, here: https://www.addgene.org/Brad_Zuchero/

We thank the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the National Institutes of Health (NINDS+NIA), the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, The McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience,  The Shurl and Kay Curci Foundation, the Myra Reinhard Family Foundation, the Ludwig Family Foundation, the Koret Foundation, Stanford ChEM-H, Stanford Bio-X, Stanford Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience, The Covert-Matera Families Endowed Faculty Scholarship/Stanford MCHRI, Stanford ADRC, Byron and Stephanie Scordelis, Donna and Jay Petkanics, Toray Industries, Sanofi, and the Stanford Department of Neurosurgery for generous support of our research.