In the Kucenas Lab, we value and welcome all individuals regardless of how we look, who we love, where we came from, what we believe, or how we live. We embrace and celebrate our differences not only because it is right, but because they also strengthen our lab and improve our science. With these values, we will strive for inclusive excellence and will not tolerate hate, discrimination, or harassment of any form in our community. In our pursuit of this goal, we will listen with compassion and patience when others share their ideas, opinions, and experiences, we will speak up with courage against acts of injustice, and we will continue to grow and evolve as humans and scientists as we learn from our mistakes and build on our achievements.

We study all things glia!

Glial Tiling

Glial-Glial Interactions

Glial Cell Development

Glial Diversity

Glial-Mediated Debris Clearance

Regeneration

The long-term goal of our research program is to elucidate the roles of peripheral and central glia and glial-glial interactions during nervous system development, maintenance and disease/injury. Using Danio rerio (zebrafish) as a model system (and to a lesser extent, mouse), we combine genetic and pharmacological perturbation, single cell manipulation, RNAsequencing, laser ablation/axotomy, and in vivo, time-lapse imaging to directly and continuously observe glial cell origins, behaviors and interactions in an intact vertebrate. 


See our Projects page for more details!