Mojgan RastegarAssociate Professor, Biochemistry & Medical Genetics, College of Medicine, University of Manitoba, Canada.
Biography
Dr. Mojgan Rastegar is an Associate Professor at the Regenerative Medicine Program, Department of Biochemistry & Medical Genetics (BMG), College of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Canada. Dr. Rastegar obtained her PhD degree in Biomedical Sciences from the "Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL)?, Brussels, Belgium. Prior to joining the University of Manitoba in 2009, Dr. Rastegar performed her postdoctoral training at the Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto, Canada), McGill University (Montreal, Canada) and Indiana University-Purdue University (Indianapolis, USA). Her current focus is to understand the ?Epigenetic Control of Stem Cell Neurogenesis? and her research aims to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of stem cell differentiation by investigating the role of specific genes and epigenetic modifications during Embryonic Stem (ES) cell and Neural Stem Cell (NSC) neurogenesis. Dr. Rastegar?s ultimate goal is to explore the potential of stem cell differentiation towards generating specific cell types for treatment of neurological disorders. Overall, Dr. Rastegar?s lab addresses a very basic question in cell fate determination, how a cell makes the decision to differentiate into a neuron and to define the genomic and epigenomic basis for its neuronal fate, aiming towards controlled stem cell programming and differentiation.
Research Interest
1. Epigenetics in Human Disease; Molecular Mechanisms of Rett syndrome
2. Gene Regulatory Network during Neural Stem Cell Neurogenesis
3. Epigenetics of Embryonic Stem Cell Neurogenesis