Maya Shelly
Associate Professor
PhD, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
Maya.Shelly@stonybrook.edu
Phone: (631) 632-8684
Training
Maya Shelly attended the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, and received a Ph.D. in 2004. She was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, from 2004 to 2010. In 2010 she joined the faculty of the Department of Neurobiology & Behavior at Stony Brook. She has served as Ad Hoc reviewer for Journal of Developmental Neurobiology. She is currently a member of the Society for Neuroscience.
Research Statement
Our laboratory seeks to understand the complex molecular and cellular events that establish neuronal morphology and function during embryonic development. An early and essential event in mammalian embryonic brain development is neuronal polarization, in which distinct axonal and dendritic compartments are formed. Axons and dendrites differ in the molecular compositions of their cytoplasm, cytoskeleton, and plasmamembrane. These differences underlie the unique morphology and function of these compartments, and are responsible for the directed information flow in the brain. Abberations in neuron poloarization lead to developmental neuropathologies, including intellectual and motor disabilities, epilepsy, and autism spectrumdisorders. Our lab seeks to understand the molecular mechanisms for the critical events in neuronal polarization during normal development and in disease pathologies.