Harrison W. Gabel, PhD

Associate Professor of Neuroscience

Washington University in St. Louis (WU)

My laboratory builds on insights from human disease genetics to uncover basic molecular mechanisms of gene expression in the nervous system and understand how disruption of these processes can lead to neurological disease. Our current work is focused on understanding how the Rett syndrome protein, MeCP2, functions together with a newly discovered, brain-enriched form of non-CpG DNA methylation to regulate the transcription of extremely long genes in the brain, and how disruption of this regulation contributes to neural dysfunction in Rett syndrome, intellectual disability, and autism spectrum disorder.