Bajikar, Sameer Subhash
Primary Appointment
Assistant Professor of Cell Biology, Cell Biology
Education
- B.S., Biomedical Engineering, University of Virginia
- Ph.D., Biomedical Engineering, University of Virginia
- Postdoc, Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine
Contact Information
Pinn Hall, Room 3022
1340 Jefferson Park Avenue
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903
Telephone: 434-924-1912
Email: ssb2v@virginia.edu
Website: https://www.bajikarlab.com
Research Disciplines
Bioinformatics and Genomics, Biomedical Engineering, Biotechnology, Cell and Developmental Biology, Computational Biology, Genetics, Neuroscience, Translational Science
Research Interests
Systems biology approaches to study gene dosage in neurodevelopment and neurodevelopmental disorders
Research Description
Mutations in any one of hundreds of genes cause neurodevelopmental disorders, like autism spectrum disorders and intellectual disability. For some unique genes, either an increase or decrease in their expression or function cause separate neurodevelopmental disorders. How the altered function of these dosage-sensitive or "Goldilocks" genes drives abnormal brain development and function remains unknown.
Our group develops new human neuronal and mouse models of neurodevelopmental disorders. We study these models using high throughput molecular measurements and synthesize these measurements using bioinformatics, computational modeling, and systems biology approaches. From these studies, we seek to identify what processes are similar and different across disorders to understand the underlying mechanisms driving abnormal brain development and function and engineer therapies to reverse and treat these devastating disorders.