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03 July 2024
2024 Innovators and Influencers: Kausik Si, Ph.D.
From In Kansas City Magazine: Meet 10 people, including Stowers Scientific Director Kausik Si, Ph.D., who are making a difference in Kansas City.
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Our lab investigates how distinct experiences in time may result in lasting behavioral changes. |
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PublicationsResearch Summary
Neuroscience, Molecular and Cell Biology, Systems Biology
Fruit flies, Donated human brain
The Si Lab investigates how a transient experience produces a persistent change in behavior and how, among the many experiences an animal encounters, only some result in this modification.
The research focuses on a type of protein, prion-like proteins, that have the propensity to aggregate or cluster together into an amyloid state. Historically, clustering of prions or prion-like proteins has been associated with Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. However, the Si Lab has found that some prions have a positive side and are essential for long-term memory, contradicting the long-held assumption that protein aggregates in the brain cause memory loss.
The Si Lab discovered that CPEB, a protein with prion-like properties, may be at the center of a series of biochemical changes at the connection points between brain cells that form the basis for memory persistence. Working with the sea snail Aplysia, the lab demonstrated that neuronal activity generates prion-like CPEB aggregates that stabilize connections between neurons. The fruit fly version of CPEB, called Orb2, undergoes prion-like changes to establish a persistent “memory trace,” and that disrupting Orb2 impaired the formation of long-term memory in fruit flies.
Thanks to a partnership with the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Kansas Medical Center and generous living donors, the Si Lab is also analyzing brain tissue samples donated from patients who have undergone brain surgery. These tissues provide a new invaluable way to study the human brain.
Principal Investigator
Scientific Director
Stowers Institute for Medical Research
Kausik Si, Ph.D., a developmental neuroscientist, is the Scientific Director for the Stowers Institute. Si joined the Institute in 2005, was appointed Associate Scientific Director in 2019 and Scientific Director in 2021.
Kausik Si, Ph.D., a developmental neuroscientist, is the Scientific Director for the Stowers Institute. Si joined the Institute in 2005, was appointed Associate Scientific Director in 2019 and Scientific Director in 2021.
Orb2, an amyloid with a known biological function in the fruit fly brain was purified and described structurally, indicating that it may be able to adopt the shape of an amyloid as part of its normal and necessary function.
Why would you want to start your lab at Stowers? Freedom. Listen as Scientific Director Kausik Si explains why he is excited to be here every day.
In The News
03 July 2024
From In Kansas City Magazine: Meet 10 people, including Stowers Scientific Director Kausik Si, Ph.D., who are making a difference in Kansas City.
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Press Release
30 April 2024
Kamena Kostova, Ph.D., a molecular biologist from Carnegie Science, will open her lab at the Stowers Institute in Fall 2024.
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In The News
08 March 2024
From KMBC, Scientists at the Stowers Institute are asking how the human body can make a memory? A lab seeking the answer recently received a financial boost from a well-known name.
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In The News
08 March 2024
From KSHB, one of the area's top scientists, Kausik Si, Ph.D., from the Stowers Institute received a coveted award for his "paradigm shifting" work to understand how our memory works and how that defines us.
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Cryo-EM structure of a neuronal functional amyloid implicated in memory persistence in Drosophila.
Hervas R, Rau MJ, Park Y, Zhang W, Murzin AG, Fitzpatrick JAJ, Scheres SHW, Si K. Science. 2020;367:1230-1234.
Amyloid-like Assembly Activates a Phosphatase in the Developing Drosophila Embryo
Nil Z, Millan RH, Gerbich T, Leal P, Yu Z, Saraf A, Sardiu M, Lange JJ, Yi K, Unruh J, Slaughter B, Si K. Cell. 2019;178:1403-1420 e1421.
Antimicrobial peptides modulate long-term memory
Barajas-Azpeleta R, Wu J, Gill J, Welte R, Seidel C, McKinney S, Dissel S, Si K. PLoS Genet. 2018;14:e1007440. doi: 1007410.1001371/journal.pgen.1007440.
Regulated Intron Removal Integrates Motivational State and Experience
Gill J, Park Y, McGinnis JP, Perez-Sanchez C, Blanchette M, Si K. Cell. 2017;169:836-848.e815.
Immediate perception of a reward is distinct from the reward's long-term salience
McGinnis JP, Jiang H, Agha MA, Perez Sanchez C, Lange JJ, Yu Z, Marion-Poll F, Si K. eLife. 2016;5:e22283. doi: 22210.27554/eLife.22283.
A Putative Biochemical Engram of Long-Term Memory
Li L, Sanchez CP, Slaughter BD, Zhao Y, Khan MR, Unruh JR, Rubinstein B, Si K. Curr Biol. 2016;26:3143-3156.