LITE illuminates new way to study the brain
For core faculty member Feng Zhang’s lab, nature offers up the raw ingredients needed to control brain cells and understand the brain’s wiring. Since joining the Broad Institute and McGovern Institute for Brain Research in 2011, Zhang has recruited neuroscientists, engineers, computer scientists, and others from diverse backgrounds who are interested in developing and optimizing the tools needed to understand the brain. The researchers have turned to bacteria for proteins that can be engineered to bind to precise locations in the genome, and to plants and algae for proteins that are activated by light. Now, Zhang’s research team has brought discoveries from both areas of study together to create an expansive toolset for precisely controlling and testing the function of genes and other genetic influences in the brain.
