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Gu Lab

Chenghua Gu, PhD

Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Professor of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School.

Research Focus
Molecular mechanisms underlying the blood brain-barrier and neuromuscular coupling.
Brief Research Description
The blood brain barrier is the gate keeper of the brain, which controls the safe and homeostasis of the brain environment for proper neuronal function. Impaired blood brain barrier has been shown to contribute to autism and genes that associated with autism in humans have been mapped to the blood brain barrier. On the other hand, a tightly controlled blood brain barrier is also a big obstacle to treat many CNS neurological diseases including autism and being able to transiently open the barrier for CNS drug delivery will change the landscape of autism treatment. Dr. Gu's work on the basic understanding of the blood brain barrier will enable them to manipulate the barrier in both directions for disease and repair.
Key Publications (PMCIDs)

Pericyte-to-endothelial cell signaling via vitronectin-integrin regulates blood-CNS barrier
Swathi Ayloo, Christopher Gallego Lazo, Shenghuan Sun, Wei Zhang, Bianxiao Cui, Chenghua Gu
Neuron. 2022 May 18;110(10):1641-1655.e6; PMCID: PMC9119930

Suppression of transcytosis regulates zebrafish blood-brain barrier function.
O'Brown NM, Megason SG, Gu C.
Elife. 2019 Aug 20;8:e47326. doi: 10.7554/eLife.47326. PMID: 31429822; PMCID: PMC6726461

Blood-Brain Barrier Permeability Is Regulated by Lipid Transport-Dependent Suppression of Caveolae-Mediated Transcytosis.
Andreone BJ, Chow BW, Tata A, Lacoste B, Ben-Zvi A, Bullock K, Deik AA, Ginty DD, Clish CB, Gu C.
Neuron. 2017 May 3;94(3):581-594.e5. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2017.03.043. Epub 2017 Apr 13. PMID: 28416077; PMCID: PMC5474951

Gradual Suppression of Transcytosis Governs Functional Blood-Retinal Barrier Formation.
Chow BW, Gu C.
Neuron. 2017 Mar 22;93(6):1325-1333.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2017.02.043. PMID: 28334606; PMCID: PMC5480403

Mfsd2a is critical for the formation and function of the blood-brain barrier.
Ben-Zvi A, Lacoste B, Kur E, Andreone BJ, Mayshar Y, Yan H, Gu C.
Nature. 2014 May 22;509(7501):507-11. doi: 1.1038/nature13324. Epub 2014 May 14. PMID: 24828040; PMCID: PMC4134871




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