Professor
Research Areas: Neurodevelopment, neurophysiology, intracellular signaling, autism
Biography
Dr. Luikart received a BS in Molecular and Cell Biology from Texas A&M University (1999) and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (2004). As a graduate student working under Dr. Luis Parada, Dr. Luikart discovered that knockout of the gene, Pten, profoundly increases the growth of dendrites and axons in the mouse brain. Contemporaneously, PTEN mutations were found in patients with autism spectrum disorder and the Pten knockout mouse became the first animal model that recapitulated both behavioral and morphological changes observed in patients.
Dr. Luikart continued to study Pten during postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Gary Westbrook at the Vollum Institute of Oregon Health and Science University. In the Westbrook laboratory, Dr. Luikart developed techniques for viral-mediated molecular manipulation in vivo and learned electrophysiology to find that Pten knockdown increased the formation of functional excitatory synapses. Dr. Luikart joined the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth as an Assistant Professor in 2011 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2017.
During this time, Dr. Luikart’s laboratory, collaborating with the Allan Gulledge laboratory, demonstrated that autism-associated mutations in Pten results in the same pathological changes seen in genetic knock out animals. In collaboration with the Matt Weston laboratory (Virginia Tech), the role of downstream mTOR signaling in the altered excitability, growth, and synaptogenesis was elucidated. With the Jeremy Barry laboratory (University of Vermont), the behavioral impact of the cell biological changes was elucidated. In collaboration with Kristopher Kahle (Harvard) they demonstrated that Pten loss represents a form of autism that often co-occurs with congenital hydrocephalus.
Dr. Luikart was recruited to the University of Alabama Heersink School of Medicine, joining the Department of Neurobiology as a professor in 2024. At UAB, the Luikart laboratory will continue to work collaboratively with the goal of understanding the neurobiological basis of autism. In doing so, they hope to uncover the fundamental basis of how organisms learn and interact with their environment.
Education
Graduate School
Ph.D., University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Postdoctoral Fellowship
Vollum Institute of Oregon Health and Science University
Contact
Email
bluikart@UAB.edu