Date: 18 November 2026 (Wednesday)
Time: 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Venue: Seminar Room 301, 3/F, William M.W. Mong Block, 21 Sassoon Road 
Host: Professor Kathryn Cheah

I am an Endowed Professor with over 25 years of experience researching neural crest cells, development, craniofacial biology and organogenesis. My PhD focused on fate-mapping and lineage tracing cranial mesoderm and neural crest cells in mammalian embryos which established the patterns of migration and progenitor cell interactions critical for mammalian craniofacial morphogenesis. During my post-doctoral training, I used these approaches in combination with transgenic and knockout mouse, and avian models to address fundamental questions in neural crest cell development, patterning, and evolution. As a principal investigator, I continue to pursue research in embryo development and the etiology and pathogenesis of neurocristopathy and ribosomopathy congenital birth defects and have made important high impact contributions throughout my career particularly with respect to the role of neural crest cells in craniofacial development, variation, evolution, and disease using mouse, zebrafish and human induced pluripotent stem cell models. These contributions, represented in over 200 publications and have been recognized by the David Bixler Excellence in Craniofacial Research – Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society for Craniofacial Genetics and Developmental Biology (2021), the Henry Gray Scientific Achievement Award from the American Association for Anatomy (2025) and my appointments as Editor-in-Chief of Developmental Dynamics (from 2018), together with election by my peers as Vice-Chair and then Chair of the Craniofacial Morphogenesis and Tissue Regeneration (2008, 2010) and Neural Crest and Placodes (2019, 2023) Gordon Research Conferences. My expertise in development and disease was recognized in my selection as co-director (2005, 2006) and then director (2007, 2008) of the CSHL Mouse Stem Cells, Development and Cancer Course. I currently remain a visiting instructor (2009-present). I was a faculty member of the MBL Embryology Course for 23 years (1998-2021). The impact of my work is evident by its inclusion in developmental biology and medical textbooks, and in education and policy material provided to physicians, patients, and their families, such as that distributed by the National Organization for Rare Disorders. I am a Fellow of the American Association for Anatomy (2018), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2023) and a Member of the Society for Developmental Biology Academy (2024). Two of my mentored clinicians, 11 of my post-doctoral trainees and 3 of my graduate students currently hold independent faculty positions, and 18 of my trainees have received NIH F30, F31, F32, K99, K08 or other pre-doctoral, postdoctoral, or mentored clinician fellowships. In recognition of my commitment to mentoring, training, educating and supporting trainees and other scientists, I received the inaugural 2022 Outstanding Mentor Award from the American Association for Anatomy. My expertise in neural crest cells, cranioskeletal development, craniofacial disorders, gene-environment interactions and disease modeling, makes me very well qualified to provide research leadership, mentorship and collaborative support to Dr Komatsu's research proposal.

A rare disease is defined as having a frequency affecting fewer than 1 in 2000 individuals. Currently over 10,000 rare diseases, which affect more than 300 million individuals world wide have been described, and most of these conditions arise during embryogenesis and early childhood. Of the 1% of individuals that are born with a developmental anomaly, over one-third exhibit facial differences. The Trainor lab therefore studies neural crest cells, which generate most of the bone, cartilage and connective tissue in the head and face, and neurons and glia in the peripheral nervous system, and their roles in development, evolution and disease, with a particular emphasis on craniofacial and gastrointestinal development. However, the same genetic, cellular, and biochemical mechanisms that regulate normal vertebrate development and evolution often go awry in the pathogenesis of birth defects. Recently, we have discovered that global processes such as rRNA transcription, ribosome biogenesis, RNA splicing, DNA damage repair, vitamin A metabolism and retinoic acid signaling function in a cell and tissue specific manner during development and in the pathogenesis of disease (Falcon et al PNAS 2022; Moore PNAS 2025; Butler Tjaden 2026; Moore et al Nat Comms 2026; Poverannaya et al Nat Comms 2026; Wiesbeck et al Science 2026). Our overall goal therefore is to define the mechanisms that regulate neural crest cell specification, epithelial to mesenchymal transformation, migration, proliferation, survival and differentiation, and to apply this foundational knowledge to better understand vertebrate development and evolution, and to design therapeutic approaches for prevent rare congenital disorders.

All are welcome.