Debra Silver, PhD, is one of nine early- to mid-career faculty from across campus whose project was awarded an inaugural Duke Science and Technology (DST) Spark Seed Grant. The awards were given to faculty with projects delivering innovative and creative ideas in pursuit of new directions and the enhancement of research and scholarship at Duke.
In her project "Interrogating Subcellular Gene Expression in the Developing Brain", Dr Silver will be studying the localization of messenger RNA and localized gene translation in nervous system cells. These processes are key to guiding new connections in a developing brain and are particularly focused in just one part of neural progenitor cells. The project will be trying to develop a new technology to measure and control gene expression in just one part of the cell. Developing a new technology is not typically funded by NIH, but mastering the technique could open up many new grant opportunities and be valuable for understanding local gene expression in systems beyond the brain.
To read more about the award and all this year's recipients, click here.