I am Dr. Melissa Cooper, a postdoctoral fellow and Leon Levy Neuroscience Fellow at NYU Langone Health.
My work characterizes astrocyte networks in morphological scope and molecular function.
A complete list of my publications lives here.
A somatosensory astrocytic network.
Astrocytes in a visual cortex astrocytic network connected through corpus callosum.
Astrocytes in a visual cortex astrocytic network connected through corpus callosum.
A motor cortex astrocytic network.
Retinal astrocytes (cyan), their gap junctions (yellow), and all retinal nuclei (magenta).
Astrocytes in the frontal cortex of a iDISCO+ cleared mouse brain. 200um of depth, coded by color and projected onto a single image.
The visual projection from one eye (red) within an intact, cleared brain.
The visual projection from one eye (red) within an intact, cleared brain.
Ipsilateral and contralateral visual projections segmented for quantification.
Expansion microscopy on primary astrocytic culture enlarges cells to about half a millimeter across, enabling imaging of individual gap junctions.
Astrocytes in the brain reacting to retinal neurodegeneration.
Immunopanned primary cortical astrocytes, cultured in serum-free conditions.
Immunopanned astrocytes forming gap junctions (magenta).
PET revealing resource distribution between the two eyes after neurodegenerative insult
PET and CT demonstrating a lack of metabolic resource transfer after astrocyte-specific connexin 43 knockout
Co-culture of primary astrocytes and microglia
Clearing a brain from an astrocyte marker mouse enabled visualization of a new astrocyte subtype on the brain's surface.
Highlighted Publications
Developed a vector and refined a tissue clearing method to reveal that astrocytes in single brain regions communicate in expansive networks that link individual regions across the CNS. These networks can differ from neuronal networks, are repeatable across mice, and are plastic.
Astrocytes connect specific brain regions through plastic gap junctional networks
Astrocytes in the mouse brain respond bilaterally to unilateral retinal neurodegeneration
Determined that neurodegenerative events in one retina impacts specific astrocyte populations in both hemispheres of the brain.
Defining the molecular identity and morphology of glia limitans superficialis astrocytes in vertebrates
Tissue clearing and single-cell sequencing revealed a highly specialized astrocyte subtype on the brain’s surface in animals from fish to human.
Redistribution of metabolic resources through astrocyte networks mitigates neurodegenerative stress
Revealed long-distance metabolic redistribution through astrocytes during neurodegeneration that rescued neuronal structure and function; examined the functional impacts of resource donation on both degenerating and donating tissue.
Postdoctoral Fellow (NYU Langone Health)
Shane Liddelow & Moses Chao LaboratoriesLeon Levy Fellow in Neuroscience
Scientist-In-Residence, The New York Academy of Sciences
Ph.D. in Neuroscience
(Vanderbilt University, Class of 2019)
B.S. in Biological Sciences, with Honors, and in Psychology; Minors in Biochemistry and in Chemistry
(Florida State University, Class of 2014)