Joshua Schwartz
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Cellular and Molecular Medicine
NSF GRFP and GROW Fellow Fellow
Summary
Josh graduated magna cum laude with majors in Biology and Chemistry from Transylvania University. As an undergraduate student at a small liberal arts school, Josh supplemented his academic training with summer biomedical research projects at the University of Cincinnati, Brown University, and Stanford University, where he studied tissue-specific gene expression, electrophysiological properties of ion channels, and neuronal differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Upon graduation, Josh enrolled in the Biochemistry, Cellular, and Molecular Biology graduate program at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine to study the regulation of neuronal gene expression. As a National Science Foundation (NSF) graduate research fellow, Josh studied how the evolutionarily conserved Let-7 family of miRNAs regulate neuronal growth and synaptic plasticity. Answering this question led him to the laboratory of Narry Kim at Seoul National University in Korea, where Josh, funded by NSF’s Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide program, learned to perform next generation sequencing with TAIL-seq to determine if genes targeted by Let-7 miRNA are differentially polyadenylated or “tailed” in response to stimulation by brain-derived neuronal growth factor. Now, as a member of Gene Yeo’s lab, Josh is continuing to investigate the cellular and molecular basis of brain development, focusing on controls of neuronal protein synthesis in health and diseases like autism spectrum disorders.
Education
B.A, Biology and Chemistry, Transylvania University, Lexington, KY, 2010
PhD, Biological Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 2017
Contact
j8schwartz@ucsd.edu
Publications
Schwartz J. L., Jones K. L., Yeo G. W. 2020. Repeat RNA expansion disorders of the nervous system: post-transcriptional mechanisms and therapeutic strategies. Critical Reviews in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Luo E. C., Nathanson J. L., Tan F. E., Schwartz J. L., Schmok J. C., Shankar A., Markmiller S., Yee B. A., Sathe S., Pratt G. A., Scaletta D. B., Ha Y., Hill D. E., Aigner S., Yeo G. W. 2020. Large-scale tethered function assays identify factors that regulate mRNA stability and translation. Nature Structural and Molecular Biology.
Subramanian M., Timmerman C. K., Schwartz J. L., Pham D. L., and Meffert M. K. 2015. Characterizing autism spectrum disorders by key biochemical pathways. Front. Neurosci. 9:313.
