Prof. Chris B. Schaffer

My lab develops and uses advanced optical techniques to observe and manipulate in vivo biological systems, with the goal of constructing a microscopic-scale understanding of normal and disease-state physiological processes in the central nervous system. The scientific questions we address center principally on elucidating the cellular-scale interactions that lead to brain cell dysfunction in neurological diseases. We develop novel optical methods that enable us to attack these problems in ways not previously possible, and because many of our research questions involve interactions among different components of an organism (e.g. effect of altered blood flow on brain cell health) we focus almost exclusively on in vivo approaches. In summary, my lab’s efforts center on in vivo experiments investigating the cellular dynamics that underlie neurological disease, supported by the development of novel optical techniques.