Kevin Yackle,

My research is focused on identifying the cellular and molecular basis of breathing rhythm generation, with the specific goal of discovering the neurons that control the pace of breathing. As a member of the Stanford Biochemistry Department, I conducted my MD/Ph.D. thesis research in Dr. Mark Krasnow’s lab where I defined over 60 molecularly distinct neural cell types in the primary breathing pacemaker and subsequently showed interesting, unexpected and important functions for five of these cell types. Most importantly, this work demonstrated that molecularly defined cells in the breathing pacemaker have highly specific functions in breathing, challenging the current model for breathing rhythm generation and instead, predicting that specific cells may in fact function as pacemakers in breathing. However, the most important question to me: What is the cellular and molecular basis for breathing rhythm generation was still unsolved and I decided to continue this work as a UCSF Sandler Fellow in the Physiology Department. In the long term, my goal is to lead a research group that not only identifies the cellular and molecular basis of breathing and breathing arrhythmias, but also uses breathing as the starting point to elucidate the cellular and molecular basis of behaviors that modify breathing, such as sleep and emotion, or behaviors that are modified by breathing, such as heart rate control and anxiety.