• March 23, 2022: Led by Matthew Schmitz, we provide a taxonomy of initial classes of mammalian inhibitory neurons and uncover evidence for contrasting developmental mechanisms of primate cell type evolution

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• January 26, 2022: Led by Bryan Pavlovic and Nathan Schaefer, we teamed up with bioethicist Dov Fox to explore the ethics of and propose a nomenclature for composite cell lines generated by interspecies cell fusions.

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• November 30, 2021: Congratulations to Sara Nolbrant on being selected as a California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) Scholar

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• November 11, 2021: Alex speaks (virtually) at Worldwide Neuro and at the University of Georgia Developmental Alliance Symposium​

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• October 19, 2021: Lab receives support from New York Stem Cell Foundation Robertson Investigator Award.

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• October 18, 2021: News and views led by Jenelle Wallace highlight two fascinating papers from Nenad Sestan's lab on cis- and trans-mechanisms contributing to iconic human traits of prefrontal cortex connectivity. 

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• June 3, 2021: Congratulations to Jenelle Wallace on being selected as a Schmidt Science Fellow

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• May 12, 2021: Alex speaks (virtually) at University of Chicago Human Genetics department

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• April 1, 2021: Congratulations to Nathan Schaefer on being selected as an inaugural Weill Neurohub Fellow

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• March 23, 2021: Alex speaks (virtually) at Institute of Science and Technology, Austria Neuroscience Data Talks

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• January 26, 2021: Alex speaks at Expanding Minds Symposium: Allen Institute Conference on Human Brain Evolution

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• November 30, 2020: Alex gives Human Genetics Seminar at Emory

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• September 15, 2020: We welcome Dr. Jenelle Wallace to the lab following her PhD at Harvard University

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• September 14, 2020 Lab selected for the 2020 Shurl & Kay Curci Foundation Faculty Scholars Program award by the Innovative Genomics Institute

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• August 2020: Thrilled to welcome 3 new PhD students to the lab: Arnar Breevoort, Reed McMullen, and Yash Abeykoon

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• May 1, 2020: We welcome Dr. Nathan Schaefer to the lab following his PhD at University of California, Santa Cruz

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• April 1, 2020:  We welcome Dr. Sara Nolbrant to the lab following her PhD at the University of Lund

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• March 2, 2020: Alex speaks at  University of Colorado, Denver to the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics

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• December 10, 2019: Alex speaks at Cold Spring Harbor Development and 3D Modeling of the Human Brain

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• December 3, 2019: Lab published review, Reverse Engineering Human Brain Evolution Using Organoid Models  in Brain Research

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• November 12, 2019: Alex speaks at USC Broad Center Stem Cell Seminar Series

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• October 7, 2019: Alex speaks at the University of Minnesota 28th Annual Developmental Biology Symposium, “New Approaches to Old Questions Organoids and Development”

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• October 1, 2019: Lab receives NIH New Innovator Award to study genetic control of human brain evolution.

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• August, 19, 2019: Congratulations to Mo for his independent article on the role of science in diplomacy and his outreach through Clubes de Ciencia Bolivia

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• July 28, 2019: Congratulations to Tyler on running the SF Marathon

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• May - July 2019: Congratulations to Tyler, Matthew, and Beatriz on passing qualifying exams

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• May 28, 2019: Bryan and Alex preview a comparative study of human and chimpanzee cardiomyocytes

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• May 13, 2019: Ian Fiddes and Alex collaborate with Sikela lab to describe paired human-specific duplication and co-regulation of NBPF and NOTCH2NL genes

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• April 13, 2019: Alex presents in the Duke Developmental and Stem Cell Biology Colloquium series

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• February 11 - 12, 2019: Alex speaks at NYU Neuroscience Institute and participates in Rachel Bandler's successful thesis defense

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• February 7, 2019: Pollen lab and Kriegstein lab publish cover article describing the potential to compare human and ape brain development using stem cell derived organoid models covered here

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• December 3, 2018:  Mo and Alex discuss transplantation studies of human neurons into mouse models

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• December 1, 2018: Sainath joins the lab as a bioinformatician

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• November 1, 2018: We join Haussler, Salama, Teodorescu, and Nowakowski labs on Schmidt Futures Foundation project to study development and evolution of human neural circuits

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• September 26, 2018: Lab receives funding for collaborative project through the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub

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• September 24, 2018: Alex presents at Company of Biologists meeting: From Stem Cells to Human Development

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• September 18, 2018: Lab contributes to Eichler lab study on transcriptional fates of paralogs following human-specific segmental duplications

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• July 7, 2018: Tyler, Matthew, and Beatriz join as the first cohort of graduate students in the lab

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• July 6, 2018: We begin project with Ahituv, Pollard, and Nowakowski labs to link disease risk alleles to cellular and developmental substrates through the PsychEncode program

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• July 5, 2018: Mo and Alex preview a study on specification of deep layer cortical neurons

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• June 7, 2018: Olivia contributes to Eichler lab cover article on de novo assembly of ape genomes and discovery of lineage-specific structural genomic variation​​

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• May 31, 2018: Collaborators in the Salama, Haussler, and Jacobs labs reconstruct genomic events and functional consequences of human-specific NOTCH2NL duplication, side-by-side with Vanderhaegan lab, covered here

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• May 22, 2018: Lab receives funding from Program for Breakthrough 
Biomedical Research at UCSF for project spearheaded by Mo.

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• March 1, 2018: Bryan joins the lab as a postdoc

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• December 8, 2017: Publish paper with Tom Nowakowski, Aparna Bharduri, Beatriz, Mo, and the Kriegstein lab, describing the appearance of area-specific excitatory neurons prior to sensory experience, and how trajectories of neuronal differentiation vary over space and time, covered here.

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• November 9, 2017: Our mission to study the genetic origin of human brain specializations is profiled here along with the efforts of colleagues in the field.

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• October 19, 2017: Alex speaks in  session at ASHG on Novel Insights into Human Brain Evolution from Advanced Genomic organized by Simon Fisher

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• September 1, 2017: We join Nowakowski, Kriegstein and Huang labs on a collaborative BRAIN Initiative Cell Census project focused on charting developmental trajectories

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• June 1, 2017: Lab officially moves into new space in the Dolby Regeneration Medicine Building

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• May 1, 2017: Mo becomes the first postdoc to join the lab.

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• March 1, 2017: Pollen lab officially opens

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• December 1, 2016: Olivia becomes first member to join the lab

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• November 11, 2016: Alex teaches in Society for Neuroscience short course, "Using Single-Cell Genomics to Analyze Neurons, Glia, and Circuits" organized by Steve McCarroll