Professor Jean M. Hébert

Jean M. Hébert, Ph.D. is Associate Professor, Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience and Associate Professor, Department of Genetics, both at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
 
Jean has two main focuses: first, understanding how a simple sheet of neuroepithelial cells early in embryogenesis develops into the adult neocortex, the part of our brains that we use for our highest cognitive and perceptual functions; and second, devising methods for regenerating the principle neurons of the adult neocortex when they are lost. For both interests, he uses primarily molecular genetic techniques to manipulate the expression of regulatory genes in neural precursor cells in mice.
 
More specifically, his two main goals are: 1) to understand how one class of genes, those that encode components of the FGF signaling pathway, regulate the behavior of neural precursor cells during development and in the adult forebrain; and 2) to establish paradigms for regenerating widely dispersed glutamatergic neurons in the adult neocortex using engineered neural precursor cells.
 
Jean is author of Replacing Aging. (Also available in Spanish.) His papers include Transcription factor AP-2 is expressed in neural crest cell lineages during mouse embryogenesis, Targeting of cre to the Foxg1 (BF-1) Locus Mediates loxP Recombination in the Telencephalon and Other Developing Head Structures, FGFR1 Is Required for the Development of the Auditory Sensory Epithelium, Dose-dependent functions of Fgf8 in regulating telencephalic patterning centers, BMP Signaling Is Required Locally to Pattern the Dorsal Telencephalic Midline, and mRNA localization studies suggest that murine FGF-5 plays a role in gastrulation.
 
Jean earned his Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of California, San Francisco.