Email

melanie.samuel@bcm.edu

Positions

Associate Professor

Department of Neuroscience, Huffington Center on Aging
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, TX US

CPRIT Scholar

Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas

Member

Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, Texas United States

Education

PhD from Washington University School of Medicine

St. Louis, Missouri United States

Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard

Cambridge, Massachusetts United States

BS from the University of Idaho

Moscow, Idaho United States

Summa Cum Laude, Biochemistry and Microbiology

BA from the University of Idaho

Moscow, United States

Summa Cum Laude, English

Professional Interests

• Discovery of new neural development molecules and pathways.
• Development of nanoscopic imaging tools and techniques for circuit analysis.
• Novel genetic models of human neural diseases
• Computational approaches to circuit mapping.

Professional Statement

The Samuel Lab seeks to tackle a central question: what make humans resilient to challenges? To solve this mystery, we focus on the nervous system because it gives rise to our individuality and underlies all of our thoughts and behavior. These abilities arise from startlingly diverse populations of cells called neurons and glia. Each of these cell types must form and connect properly in order for the brain to function. But often these processes fail, resulting in neural disease. We aim to decipher the genes and molecules that control neural fate, connectivity, and resiliency in the hope that we can one day manipulate them to prevent, or even reverse, neural disease.

Websites

Selected Publications

• Sarin S. Zuniga-Sanchez E, Kurmangaliyev Y, Cousins H, Patel M, Hernandez J, Zhang K, Morey M, Samuel MA, Sanes M1*, Zipursky LS. "Role for Wnt Signaling in Retinal Neuropil Development: Analysis via RNA-Seq and In Vivo Somatic CRISPR Mutagenesis.." Neuron. 2018 Mar 22;98(1):109-126.E8. Pubmed PMID: 29576390
• Samuel MA, Voinescu PE, Lilley BN, de Cabo R, Foretz M, Viollet B, Pawlyk B, Sandberg MA, Vavvas DG, Sanes JR. "LKB1 and AMPK regulate synaptic remodeling in old age.." Nat Neurosci. 2014 Sep 17;17:1190-1197. Pubmed PMID: 25086610
• Albrecht NE, Alevy J, Jiang D, Burger CA, Liu BI, Li F, Wang J, Kim SY, Hsu CW, Kalaga S, Udensi U, Asomugha C, Bohat R, Gaspero A, Justice MJ, Westenskow PD, Yamamoto S, Seavitt JR, Beaudet AL, Dickinson ME, Samuel MA. "Rapid and Integrative Discovery of Retina Regulatory Molecules." Cell Reports. 2018 Aug 28;24(9):2506-2519. Pubmed PMID: 30157441
• Alevy J, Burger CA, Albrecht NE, Jiang D, Samuel MA. "Progressive myoclonic epilepsy-associated gene Kctd7 regulates retinal neurovascular patterning and function.." Neurochem Int. 2019 Oct;129 Pubmed PMID: 31175897