Linda Barlow, PhD
Principal Investigator
I earned my bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley (my home town) in Zoology – a department now named Integrative Biology, where I developed a strong interest in both Neuroscience and Marine Invertebrate Biology. After college, I spent a year working for an environmental consulting group in Los Angeles as a research diver, which was hard work! I entered graduate school, again in Zoology, at the University of Washington, where I studied development of the nervous system in a marine mollusk, the red abalone – despite working in an insect neurodevelopment lab with Jim Truman as my P.I. Abalone develop first as tiny (150 µm) planktonic larvae, which then undergo a radical metamorphosis triggered by environmental chemical cues that signal the presence of their future food. I studied how the larval nervous system underwent rapid metamorphosis when exposed to these cues.
I was convinced by my next mentor, Glenn Northcutt at UC San Diego, to move from invertebrates to a vertebrate model to investigate the embryonic development of the taste system. As a postdoc, I embarked on studies of the tissue level interactions that control taste bud formation using the axolotl – an aquatic salamander. Axolotls have large eggs, ~2 mm in diameter, and have been used for over a century to investigate fundamental questions of embryogenesis, and also famously, limb and spinal cord regeneration. During my time in San Diego, I was immersed in the Northcutt lab’s focus on evolution of the development of sensory systems, but also became an honorary member of the labs of Drs. Christine Holt and Bill Harris (now at Cambridge, UK), whose groups were investigating molecular regulation of neural development using the visual system of the frog, Xenopus laevis, as a model. Studies in Glenn’s lab on the developing lateral line (an array of mechanoreceptors on the surface of fish and aquatic amphibians) influenced my thinking as to how cells within taste buds might assemble, and exposure to the Harris/Holt labs caused me ponder tissue level interactions that could underlie development of taste bud innervation. In sum, I published 3 first author data papers as postdoc, one in collaboration with my late friend and colleague, Chi Bin Chien who was a postdoc in the Harris lab; all focused on tissue level interactions of taste bud development.
I obtained my first academic position at the University of Denver, and was able to train 2 graduate students and a host of undergraduates during my 4 years there. During that time, we continued to use axolotl embryos to investigate questions of taste bud and taste sensory neuron development. Additionally, during this time, I was selected for a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers – an award that resulted in my recruitment to the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 2001.
While still at the University of Denver, my lab and I had begun to explore taste bud development in mouse embryos. I was captivated by the power of genetics available to researchers using mice. With the advent of inducible molecular genetic tools and my move to the Medical School, I began to move our research away from axolotls and into mouse models, still asking the same types of questions: what are the cellular, and now molecular, signals that regulate taste bud formation.
Over the past decade, the focus of the lab has grown to include investigations of the cellular and molecular mechanisms that govern taste bud development and cell renewal in adult mice.
Looking back, I realize a myriad of experiences and organisms and people have influenced the specifics of the questions we now pursue in the lab, but I am still captivated by wanting to understand how cells communicate to form a functioning chemosensory system.
Interests outside the lab:
Travel to foreign destinations with my family in tow.
The outdoors, especially hiking in the summer, and skiing in the winter.
Home: gardening, reading, puzzles, family movie night, and microbreweries.
I was convinced by my next mentor, Glenn Northcutt at UC San Diego, to move from invertebrates to a vertebrate model to investigate the embryonic development of the taste system. As a postdoc, I embarked on studies of the tissue level interactions that control taste bud formation using the axolotl – an aquatic salamander. Axolotls have large eggs, ~2 mm in diameter, and have been used for over a century to investigate fundamental questions of embryogenesis, and also famously, limb and spinal cord regeneration. During my time in San Diego, I was immersed in the Northcutt lab’s focus on evolution of the development of sensory systems, but also became an honorary member of the labs of Drs. Christine Holt and Bill Harris (now at Cambridge, UK), whose groups were investigating molecular regulation of neural development using the visual system of the frog, Xenopus laevis, as a model. Studies in Glenn’s lab on the developing lateral line (an array of mechanoreceptors on the surface of fish and aquatic amphibians) influenced my thinking as to how cells within taste buds might assemble, and exposure to the Harris/Holt labs caused me ponder tissue level interactions that could underlie development of taste bud innervation. In sum, I published 3 first author data papers as postdoc, one in collaboration with my late friend and colleague, Chi Bin Chien who was a postdoc in the Harris lab; all focused on tissue level interactions of taste bud development.
I obtained my first academic position at the University of Denver, and was able to train 2 graduate students and a host of undergraduates during my 4 years there. During that time, we continued to use axolotl embryos to investigate questions of taste bud and taste sensory neuron development. Additionally, during this time, I was selected for a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers – an award that resulted in my recruitment to the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 2001.
While still at the University of Denver, my lab and I had begun to explore taste bud development in mouse embryos. I was captivated by the power of genetics available to researchers using mice. With the advent of inducible molecular genetic tools and my move to the Medical School, I began to move our research away from axolotls and into mouse models, still asking the same types of questions: what are the cellular, and now molecular, signals that regulate taste bud formation.
Over the past decade, the focus of the lab has grown to include investigations of the cellular and molecular mechanisms that govern taste bud development and cell renewal in adult mice.
Looking back, I realize a myriad of experiences and organisms and people have influenced the specifics of the questions we now pursue in the lab, but I am still captivated by wanting to understand how cells communicate to form a functioning chemosensory system.
Interests outside the lab:
Travel to foreign destinations with my family in tow.
The outdoors, especially hiking in the summer, and skiing in the winter.
Home: gardening, reading, puzzles, family movie night, and microbreweries.
