Tomasz Nowakowski, PhD

Research Description

Research in the lab focuses on mapping and functionally interrogating molecular and cellular networks in the developing and adult brain. We are taking a multi-disciplinary approach, including molecular genetics, functional genomics, single cell genomics, cell biology, to gain a mechanistic understanding of cell fate specification, intercellular interactions, and higher order phenotypes in the human brain and its models.

Current Projects

Brain Development – we are pursuing studies that seek to decipher the developmental origins of cell diversity in the human cerebral cortex. We are interested in studying how genetic mutations in patients with neurological and neuropsychiatric developmental symptoms disrupt normal brain development.

Gene Regulatory Networks – we are utilizing single cell omics approaches to identify molecular properties of cells in the developing and adult brain. By generating cellular-resolution datasets spanning genomic, epigenomic, transcriptomic, and functional readouts from cells under different states, we seek to identify the hubs of regulatory relationships that shape multiple features of cell identity and function.

Cell-Cell Interactions – we are studying how distinct cell types come together to build what is more than a sum of its parts. Pervasive and dynamic communication between cell types plays critical role in brain development and disease, and we are developing tools and technologies to identify and functionally interrogate those interactions in the human brain.

Lab Members

Lab Website