The University of Louisiana at Lafayette has taken its place in the top level of the nation’s research institutions
Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Karen Müller Smith
Thu, 05/16/2013 - 11:20am
Assistant Professor
Department of Biology
Karen Müller Smith, Ph.D. obtained her B.S. in Cytogenetics from the School of Allied Health at the University of Connecticut. She was especially interested in the use of chromosomal studies to diagnose cognitive disorders such as Downs Syndrome and Fragile X Syndrome, and as a tool for gene discovery.
As a graduate student in the Genetics Program at Tufts University, Dr. Smith studied the genetics of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in the laboratory of Dr. Bradford Navia. Her studies investigated the role of dopaminergic and noradrenergic system genes in ADHD, identifying an association between variants of the dopamine beta hydroxylase gene and ADHD. During this time, she developed an immense interest in the role of genes in the development of the central nervous system and in how developmental events can influence cognition and behavior.
Dr. Smith performed her postdoctoral studies in the laboratory of Dr. Flora Vaccarino at the Yale University Child Study Center. There, she gained experience in neurobiology, childhood psychiatric disorders, and in working with transgenic mice as a model organism to study mammalian brain development.
Her research has elucidated how a family of cell signaling receptors, Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptors 1 and 2, participate in axonal guidance, neural stem cell proliferation and the genesis of excitatory neurons and glia of the mammalian cerebral cortex and cerebellum. Dr. Smith has also performed behavioral characterizations of mice lacking Fgfr1. She found that Fgfr1 mutants have locomotor hyperactivity that is correlated to a loss of cortical GABAergic interneurons in mice lacking Fgfr1. This project has evolved to the study of neural glial interactions and the role of Fgfr1 in the cellular plasticity of the postnatal cortex.
Dr. Smith has previously been funded by an institutional NRSA training grant in the Neurobiology of Childhood Psychiatric Disorders, as well as the Alexander Brown Coxe award. Currently, her work is funded by both a K01 Mentored Research Scientist award from the National Institute of Mental Health and by a NARSAD Young Investigator Award.