Microglia, the primary immune cells of the central nervous system, govern multiple aspects of brain architecture and function. In the healthy brain, microglia sense a broad range of environmental cues and mount appropriate, context-dependent responses. However, in many neurodegenerative conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease and lysosomal storage disorders, microglia display aberrant activation to extracellular debris, reduced motility, and impaired phagocytic clearance. Despite multiple lines of evidence demonstrating that disrupted microglia function is a hallmark of neurodegeneration, a fundamental gap exists in our understanding of the pathological mechanisms in microglia that contribute to the onset or progression of neurodegeneration.

Members of the Iyer laboratory seek to illuminate the complex interplay between the nervous and immune systems during development, homeostasis, and in neurodegeneration from the perspective of microglia. We use the vertebrate model organism, zebrafish, widely appreciated for its amenability to live imaging and functional genomic screens, to tackle some exciting questions in the field of neuroimmunology, including: How are signals of extracellular stress transduced to microglia in vivo? Can we gain a deeper understanding of the biology of microglia by defining the functions of neurodegeneration-associated genes? Are there conserved neuroimmune signatures between pediatric and adult neurodegenerative disorders? Collectively, we are a group of curiosity-driven developmental biologists and cell biologists with a shared goal of uncovering fundamental processes in neuroimmunology, thus revealing strategies to prevent or cure neurodegenerative diseases.