Mapping and re-engineering biological drive circuits

About us

The Pool Lab studies the cellular mechanisms of animal motivation and develops targeted gene therapies to re-engineer these functions. Current work in the Pool Lab focuses on one of these drive systems aiming to flesh out central circuits that mediate pain and pain relief states as well as develop viral and non-viral approaches to make these circuit nodes therapeutically addressable.

We use a combination of single-cell transcriptomic and epigenomic profiling, spatial transcriptomics, behavioral, circuit manipulation, imaging and molecular genetic approaches to establish central representations of pain and pain relief. Furthermore, we aim to take advantage of the transcriptional and epigenetic properties of these circuit nodes to generate new ways to gain selective therapeutic access to these neural populations and thereby over the biological functions they control.