Project Grant R21HD112917

This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865), is providing $486,750.00 to the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, a non-profit organization, to conduct research on the molecular and cellular pathways that drive competency for human vagal neural crest specification.

The research aims to fully characterize the population of cells that exhibits vagal competence, identify signals that can selectively enrich for these cells, and dissect the underlying mechanism of competence using a multi-omics approach combining single-cell RNA sequencing and single-cell ATAC sequencing, as well as CRISPR-based activation and interference. Improving the understanding of how vagal neural crest identity is established has broad implications for neural crest cell specification and patterning, which could enhance the ability to generate vagal neural crest cells for treating diseases such as Hirschsprung's disease. The research may also reveal general mechanisms of axial patterning that impact the development of other embryonic tissues including the central nervous system. The award period runs from September 19, 2023 through August 31, 2025.