Sergio Ojeda Laboratory

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1. Resource Description

   "Sergio Ojeda and his collaborators seek to understand the process by which the brain controls the initiation of mammalian puberty. An important goal in their laboratory is to gain insights into the molecular and genetic mechanisms underlying deranged sexual development, particularly sexual precocity and delayed puberty of cerebral origin. Ojeda's team focuses on identifying molecules responsible for the interactions that occur between neurons and glial cells in the hypothalamus, a region in the base of the brain that controls several bodily functions, including hormone secretion, reproduction, response to stress, feeding and sex behavior. One group of hypothalamic neurons produces gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), a substance that controls the secretion of reproductive hormones from the pituitary gland. The investigators are using cellular, molecular, genetics and systems biology strategies, in addition to high-throughput approaches and computational biology methods to develop three interrelated concepts: 1) That mammalian puberty is controlled by genetic networks that, operating within different cell contexts in the neuroendocrine brain, coordinate the activity of GnRH neurons at puberty, 2) That these networks are controlled at the transcriptional level by a repressive mechanism exerted by discrete subsets of gene "silencers", and 3) That this transcriptional regulation is under epigenetic control, i.e. a mechanism by which environmental factors (such as nutrition, man-made chemicals, changes in light/dark cycle, etc.) regulate gene activity without modifying the actual sequence of encoding DNA."

2. PI

   Ojeda, Sergio

3. Affiliation

   Oregon National Primate Research Center

4. Website(s)

   http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/research/centers-institutes/onprc/scientific-discovery/scientists/sergio-ojeda.cfm

5. Secondary affiliation

   Division of Neuroscience

6. Secondary affiliation

   School of Medicine