James Jontes, PhD

About

Biography

I am James Jontes, an associate research professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Pharmacology. My lab studies the development of the vertebrate central nervous system. Development is an extraordinary process whereby organisms self-assemble from a single, fertilized cell. Our work is aligned along three themes. First, we are interested in the dynamics of development and how the embryo changes over time. This includes how cells move collectively during morphogenesis, how cells divide to give rise to neurons and how neurons elaborate arbors and form synapses. Relatedly, we are interested in how the functional response of the nervous system can be used as a measure of its development and to quantify mutant phenotypes. To address these questions, we use in vivo timelapse microscopy in living zebrafish embryos to visualize cellular and neural dynamics. The second theme of the lab is cell adhesion and cell-cell recognition. The developing brain has a highly conserved architecture, with assembly of the brain tightly regulated in space and time. Cell-cell recognition helps guide the dynamic cell behaviors responsible for brain assembly, influencing cell divisions and cell movements, as well as exploratory growth of axons and dendrites and the formation of synapses. We are interested in how cell adhesion molecules, primarily members of the protocadherin family, modulate cell dynamics to influence development. The third theme is robustness. Development is built from stochastic processes, yet leads to remarkably consistent outcomes. Similarly, brains are unique, varying in their microarchitecture, but exhibit stereotyped function. We are interested in the variation of phenotype in wild type and mutant zebrafish and how this variation in the mapping of genotype to phenotype can shape our understanding of neurodevelopmental disorders.

Credentials

Research