Clifton Ragsdale, Ph.D.

Molecular Genetic Control of Brain Development and Differentiation

Research Summary

The Ragsdale laboratory studies the molecular and cellular mechanisms that control the proliferation, migration and differentiation of embryonic brain cells.  A major related project in the laboratory is a collaboration with Prof. Luping Yu of the Department of Chemistry to develop polymers for in vivo gene delivery.  These new polymer systems have the promise of generating new information about transfection cell biology and yielding novel vectors for gene delivery in experimental animals and in human therapeutics. 

Selected Papers

Agarwala S, Sanders TA and Ragsdale CW. (2001). Sonic Hedgehog control of size and shape in midbrain pattern formation. Science 291: 2147-2150. Full Text

Sanders TA, Lumsden A and Ragsdale CW. (2002) . Arcuate plan of chick midbrain development. J. Neuroscience 22, 10742-10750. Full Text

Agarwala S and Ragsdale CW. (2002). A role for midbrain arcs in nucleogenesis. Development 129, 5779-5788. Full Text

Assimacopoulos S, Grove EA and Ragsdale CW. (2003). Identification of a Pax6-dependent epidermal growth factor family signaling source at the lateral edge of the embryonic cerebral cortex. J. Neuroscience 23, 6399-6403. Full Text

Agarwala S, Aglyamova GV, Marma AK, Fallon JF and Ragsdale CW. (2005). Differential susceptibility of midbrain and spinal cord patterning to floor plate defects in the talpid mutant. Developmental Biology 288, 206-220.

Gan, L., Olson, J.L., Ragsdale, C.W. and Yu, L. (2008) Poly(beta-aminosulfonamides) as gene delivery vectors: synthesis and in vitro screening. Chem. Commun. 2008, 573-575.

Domowicz, M.S., Sanders, T., Ragsdale, C.W. and Schwartz, N.B. (2008) Aggrecan is expressed by embryonic brain glia and regulates astrocyte development. Dev. Biol. 315, 114-124.