Hilary Gerstein, Sc.B.
Neuroscience
Brown University

Currently in the Neuroscience Training Program at UW, hopefull award of Ph.D. in Neuroscience in 2011

My research interests focus on using rodent models to explore how cellular and molecular changes in the brain relate to behavior. I have done past work with transgenic mouse models of Alzheimer's disease and also studied the effect of pharmacological manipulations on maternal behaviors and histology in mice. Currently, as a graduate student, I am studying the function of certain genes expressed in the hippocampus that have previously been implicated in learning and memory. In the Burger Lab, we use recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) as a gene delivery system to overexpress or knock-down function of these candidate genes in specific regions of the brain. I will then examine the resulting phenotypes with a variety of behavioral tests and anatomical techniques.

Publications:

K Scearce-Levie, ED Roberson, H Gerstein, JA Cholfin, VS Mandiyan, NM Shah, JLR Rubenstein & L Mucke.  “Abnormal social behaviors in mice lacking Fgf17”.  Genes, Brain and Behavior (2007)  Oct 1;  17908176

Erik D. Roberson, Kimberly Scearce-Levie, Jorge J. Palop, Fengrong Yan, Irene H. Cheng, Tiffany Wu, Hilary Gerstein, Gui-Qiu Yu, Lennart Mucke.  “Reducing Endogenous Tau Ameliorates Amyloid Beta-induced Deficits in an Alzheimer’s Disease Mouse Model”.  Science (2007)  4 (316):  750-754

Jeannie Chin, Jorge J. Palop, Jukka Puolivali, Catherine Massaro, Nga Bien-Ly, Hilary Gerstein, Kimberly Scearce-Levie, Eliezer Masliah & Lennart Mucke.  "Fyn Kinase Induces Synaptic and Cognitive Impairments in a Transgenic Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease".  J. Neuroscience (2005)   25 (42): 9694-9703

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