Henley John

Background

About Henley John

I direct the Developmental and Regenerative Neurobiology Laboratory at Mayo Clinic, which focuses on discovery-based research to understand chemotactic cell migration mechanisms in neural development, neuropathogenesis, and neuroregeneration. Ongoing work is dissecting the relative contributions of individual signaling pathways and the mechanisms by which these regulate and polarize cytoskeletal elements, vesicle dynamics, membrane protrusion, and substrate adhesion during chemotaxis of neural cells. The underlying premise of this work is that a better understanding of how specific signaling pathways polarize effector processes to drive migration will provide molecular insight toward pharmacotherapeutic interventions to treat significant clinical problems including autism spectrum disorders, lack of regeneration in the nervous system, and invasive brain tumors. My broad training in electrophysiology, cell biology, molecular neuroscience, and developmental neurobiology during MS thesis research with John Stout (Andrews University), PhD thesis research with Mark McNiven (Mayo Clinic), and postdoctoral research with Mu-ming Poo (UC San Diego and UC Berkeley) provide the cross-disciplinary experience to successfully lead these efforts. As Associate Professor of neurosurgery and physiology, I also am engaged in graduate education through giving didactic lectures on axon guidance and regeneration mechanisms, course development (Concepts of Nerve Growth and Regeneration), serving on our neuroscience PhD education committee in the Mayo Graduate School, and participation in both written and oral qualifying examinations. I have mentored 5 Mayo PhD and MD-PhD students to successful completion of the PhD degree and have served as a member of more than 12 PhD thesis advisory committees.