Associate Professor, Qu Yibo from the Joint Laboratory of Brain Function and Health at Jinan Univeristy Visits GIBH

Prof. Qu Yibo from the Joint Laboratory of Brain Function and Health, Jinan Univeristy (JNU) visited GIBH to give a seminar on the morning of April 25th, 2012. She gave a presentation entitled “Role of Planar Polarity Proteins Celsr1-3 in Neuronal Migration and Ciliogenesis”. Dr. Li Peng from the South China Institute of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at GIBH hosted the seminar.

During the seminar, Prof. Qu detailed her research when she was at French Louvain University in Belgium. She discussed the generation of a conditional knockout line of mice targeting the plane cell polarity (PCP) gene. These knockout mice allowed her team to study importance of PCP in the mouse nervous system. The team discovered that Celsr family proteins are involved in controlling cilia development in the large ventricle tube membrane cells of mice, and their malfunction can lead to fatal brain edema. These results were published in the journal Nature Neuroscience (2010, cover article). In addition, the research in her lab also revealed that this family of proteins is important for the development of motor neurons. The results were published in the Journal of Neuroscience (2010).

After the seminar, the participants had an in-depth discussion with Prof. Qu.