A. Kimberley McAllister, Ph.D.
Multiple Principal Investigator, Project 2: Striatal Circuits in MIA Phenotypic Heterogeneity
Professor of Biology; Translational Neurosciences
Wake Forest School of Medicine
A. Kimberley McAllister is a Professor of Biology and Translational Neurosciences at Wake Forest School of Medicine. She is MPI of Project 2 in the Conte Center. Dr. McAllister was the leader of the UC Davis RISE pilot Center that led to this Conte Center. Her laboratory studies the role for immune molecules in brain development and disease. She discovered that MHCI molecules are present on neurons in the developing brain, where they negatively regulate the establishment and strength of connections. Her laboratory also discovered that maternal immune activation leads to long-lasting changes in cytokine and MHCI levels in the brains of offspring throughout development. At birth, MIA causes a significant deficit in the ability of cortical neurons to form synapses through a mechanism that requires the MIA-induced changes in neuronal MHCI levels. Thus, the McAllister lab is uniquely suited to perform experiments in this Conte center focused on the progression of neuropathology and immune dysregulation in MIA model systems.