Corinne Houart is a Belgian biomedical scientist who is Professor of Developmental Neurobiology at King's College London. She also serves as Vice Dean for Research in the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience at King's College London. She is a leading international researcher with a focus on the molecular and cellular mechanisms that drive zebrafish forebrain development, and evolutionary mechanisms underlying vertebrate brain regionalisation.
Corinne Houart completed her secondary education in a comprehensive school in the north of Brussels. She studied biomedical sciences at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and remained there for doctoral research, where she studied gene regulation in cancer. [1] After her PhD and a career break in Mexico, Houart moved to the University of Oregon, where she began working on developmental neuroscience and established that the anterior neural border and the Wnt/beta-catenin pathway are critical for forebrain regionalisation and showed that forebrain specification took place at the neural plate stage [2] .
Houart started her independent laboratory at King's College London in 2001, and was promoted to professor in 2008. She leads a pioneering lab focused on understanding the molecular and cellular foundations of early brain development [3] . Over her career, she has expanded her research scope to include studies on RNA splicing and neurodegeneration, with particular interest in proteins like SFPQ that influence axonal development and are implicated in conditions like ALS [4] . Houart’s lab has become a leader in using the zebrafish as a model organism to examine how signalling pathways and transcription factors shape brain architecture in the early stages of development.
A significant area of Houart’s more recent research at King’s has focused on the transcription factor FOXG1, which plays a pivotal role in forebrain organisation [5] . Her work has shed light on how human mutations in FOXG1 impact brain formation, with implications for conditions like FOXG1 syndrome and autism spectrum conditions. Her lab has successfully created zebrafish models that help elucidate the gene’s function and the developmental impact of its human mutations, providing a basis for potential therapeutic approaches [6] . Houart has been instrumental in advancing genome editing techniques, enabling more refined investigations into brain development processes.
In recognition of her scientific achievements, Corinne Houart was elected to the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) in 2021 [7] . She has also received the Medical Research Council’s Suffrage Science award [8] , which honours leading female scientists for their contributions and role as mentors in science.
Gastrulation is the stage in the early embryonic development of most animals, during which the blastula, or in mammals the blastocyst, is reorganized into a two-layered or three-layered embryo known as the gastrula. Before gastrulation, the embryo is a continuous epithelial sheet of cells; by the end of gastrulation, the embryo has begun differentiation to establish distinct cell lineages, set up the basic axes of the body, and internalized one or more cell types including the prospective gut.
In cellular biology, the Wnt signaling pathways are a group of signal transduction pathways which begin with proteins that pass signals into a cell through cell surface receptors. The name Wnt, pronounced "wint", is a portmanteau created from the names Wingless and Int-1. Wnt signaling pathways use either nearby cell-cell communication (paracrine) or same-cell communication (autocrine). They are highly evolutionarily conserved in animals, which means they are similar across animal species from fruit flies to humans.
Synaptogenesis is the formation of synapses between neurons in the nervous system. Although it occurs throughout a healthy person's lifespan, an explosion of synapse formation occurs during early brain development, known as exuberant synaptogenesis. Synaptogenesis is particularly important during an individual's critical period, during which there is a certain degree of synaptic pruning due to competition for neural growth factors by neurons and synapses. Processes that are not used, or inhibited during their critical period will fail to develop normally later on in life.
The floor plate is a structure integral to the developing nervous system of vertebrate organisms. Located on the ventral midline of the embryonic neural tube, the floor plate is a specialized glial structure that spans the anteroposterior axis from the midbrain to the tail regions. It has been shown that the floor plate is conserved among vertebrates, such as zebrafish and mice, with homologous structures in invertebrates such as the fruit fly Drosophila and the nematode C. elegans. Functionally, the structure serves as an organizer to ventralize tissues in the embryo as well as to guide neuronal positioning and differentiation along the dorsoventral axis of the neural tube.
Catenin beta-1, also known as β-catenin (beta-catenin), is a protein that in humans is encoded by the CTNNB1 gene.
Prickle is also known as REST/NRSF-interacting LIM domain protein, which is a putative nuclear translocation receptor. Prickle is part of the non-canonical Wnt signaling pathway that establishes planar cell polarity. A gain or loss of function of Prickle1 causes defects in the convergent extension movements of gastrulation. In epithelial cells, Prickle2 establishes and maintains cell apical/basal polarity. Prickle1 plays an important role in the development of the nervous system by regulating the movement of nerve cells.
The zona limitans intrathalamica (ZLI) is a lineage-restriction compartment and primary developmental boundary in the vertebrate forebrain that serves as a signaling center and a restrictive border between the thalamus and the prethalamus.
Transcription factor 7-like 2 , also known as TCF7L2 or TCF4, is a protein acting as a transcription factor that, in humans, is encoded by the TCF7L2 gene. The TCF7L2 gene is located on chromosome 10q25.2–q25.3, contains 19 exons. As a member of the TCF family, TCF7L2 can form a bipartite transcription factor and influence several biological pathways, including the Wnt signalling pathway.
The development of fishes is unique in some specific aspects compared to the development of other animals.
Dickkopf-related protein 1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the DKK1 gene.
Dishevelled (Dsh) is a family of proteins involved in canonical and non-canonical Wnt signalling pathways. Dsh is a cytoplasmic phosphoprotein that acts directly downstream of frizzled receptors. It takes its name from its initial discovery in flies, where a mutation in the dishevelled gene was observed to cause improper orientation of body and wing hairs. There are vertebrate homologs in zebrafish, Xenopus (Xdsh), mice and humans. Dsh relays complex Wnt signals in tissues and cells, in normal and abnormal contexts. It is thought to interact with the SPATS1 protein when regulating the Wnt Signalling pathway.
The TCF/LEF family is a group of genes that encode transcription factors which bind to DNA through a SOX-like high mobility group domain. They are involved in the Wnt signaling pathway, particularly during embryonic and stem-cell development, but also had been found to play a role in cancer and diabetes. TCF/LEF factors recruit the coactivator beta-catenin to enhancer elements of genes they target. They can also recruit members of the Groucho family of corepressors.
Christine Elizabeth Holt is a British developmental neuroscientist.
Retinal homeobox protein Rx also known as retina and anterior neural fold homeobox is a protein that in humans is encoded by the RAX gene. The RAX gene is located on chromosome 18 in humans, mice, and rats.
Maria Leptin is a German developmental biologist and immunologist, and the current President of the European Research Council. She was the Director of the European Molecular Biology Organization from 2010 to 2021.
A follower neuron is a nerve cell that arises in the developmental stage of the brain and which growth and orientation is intrinsically related to pioneer neurons. These neurons can also be called later development neurons or follower cells. In the early stages of brain development, pioneer neurons define axonal trajectories that are later used as scaffolds by follower neurons, which project their growth cones and fasciculate with pioneer axons, forming a fiber tract and demonstrating a preference for axon-guided growth. It is thought that these neurons can read very accurate cues of direction and fasciculate or defasciculate in order to reach their target, even in a highly dense axon bundle.
Athanasia Papalopulu is a Wellcome Trust senior research fellow and Professor of Developmental Neuroscience in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Manchester.
Sir James Cuthbert Smith is an Emeritus Scientist at the Francis Crick Institute, Honorary Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge and President of the Council at the Zoological Society of London.
Catherina Gwynne Becker is W3 professor for Neural Development and Regeneration Alexander von Humboldt Professor at TU Dresden, and was formerly Professor of Neural Development and Regeneration at the University of Edinburgh.
Carl-Philipp Heisenberg is a German developmental biologist specializing in embryology, cell biology, and biophysics. He is the grandson of the physicist Werner Heisenberg and nephew of biologist Martin Heisenberg. He was born in Munich, Germany.
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