Ana Villalba

The paper identifies a human-specific transcriptomic deletion in HMMR that affects cell division plasticity and links cortical expansion to cancer risk.

This study investigates the role of Pten in radial glial progenitor lineage progression and astrocyte production during cortical development, finding that Pten loss increases astrocyte generation and disrupts growth factor signaling.

This study investigates the role of Mtor/Rptor in cortical development, finding that its loss causes microcephaly through tissue-wide effects, while cell-autonomous Rptor function is critical for postnatal neuron survival in a cell-type-specific manner.

The paper shows SNRPN, a paralogue of SNRPB, stabilizes metabolic transcripts and enhances mitochondrial function, revealing a methylation-dependent mechanism for metabolic specialization in mammals.

The paper reveals that early multipotent radial glial progenitors generate all projection neurons through parallel sublineages and fate-restricted daughter cells, challenging existing models of cortical development.