Emily Baltz

History

• UIUC Class of 2015: Molecular and Cellular Biology & Psychology
• Stubbs lab member:  January 2012 – present

Current Project

Emily works with graduate student Annie Weisner. She’s helping to investigate the role of the neurodevelopmental gene, Auts2. Mutations in the Auts2 locus cause autism, epilepsy, and mental retardation in humans, but little is known about the function of this gene or its role during neurodevelopment. In the past, Emily  designed primers to investigate the expression of various isoforms at different stages of murine brain development.  Currently, she’s using immunohistochemistry to examine the differences of expression of  AUTS2 in our translocation mutant 16Gso as compared to its wildtype littermates. 16Gso displays epilepsy and autistic-like behaviors resulting from a reduction in AUTS2 expression.

Outside the Lab

Emily acted as an executive board member for the Undergrad Neuroscience Society for the past 2 years. Outside of neuroscience, Emily still enjoys experiments, including writing with the C-U Experimental Writing Lab. You can find Emily buried in a book, running, swimming, making not very technically-skilled art, and exploring the weird nooks and crannies of Chambana.