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 glial cells regulate neural development and how their dysfunction contributes to diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS) and in injuries like stroke.

Although glia represent more than half of the cells in the human brain, fundamental questions remain to be answered. How do glia develop their highly specialized morphologies and interact with neurons to powerfully control form and function of the nervous system? How is this disrupted in neurodegenerative diseases and after injury? By bringing cutting-edge cell biology techniques to the study of glia, we aim to uncover how glia help sculpt and regulate the nervous system and test their potential as novel, untapped therapeutic targets for disease and injury.

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.