Mitchell Lab

We are interested in the resident macrophages of the central nervous system, the microglia. We seek to understand the dynamics and functions of microglia during tissue development, in contexts of degeneration or tissue injury, their interactions with other cell types (in particular, other glial cells), and their function in regeneration of damaged tissue. Our research has importance in understanding the basis of neurodegenerative disease, design of therapeutic treatments, and advances towards regenerative therapies in humans. We use the zebrafish as our model organism and we apply a variety of approaches to answer our questions, including static and real-time microscopy, transgenesis, next generation sequencing, and gene targeting.