Photo of Justus Kebschull

Kebschull, Justus

Assistant Professor

733 N Broadway
MRB 335
Baltimore MD 21205

Lab website

Neuroscience

Understanding the brain using evolution, viruses, and barcode sequencing.
Our research aims to understand the structure and function of the brain. To do so, we take a comparative approach and develop molecular, viral, and sequencing technologies to measure neuronal connectivity and gene expression at high resolution and throughput in disease models and in a wide range of vertebrates, ranging from humans to sharks. We have developed the first barcode sequencing-based approaches to map neuronal connectivity, increasing throughput of single-neuron mapping by orders of magnitude and opening the door to single-cell comparative connectomics. We complement this connectivity mapping by in situ sequencing of barcodes and endogenous genes to understand how new brain regions evolve, how brain connectivity changes to support new behaviors, and to understand the effects of drugs of abuse and neurodevelopmental disorders on brain structure. Our work is highly interdisciplinary, residing at the interface of neuroscience, synthetic, evolutionary, and developmental biology, genomics, virology, and computational biology.

Link to Complete List of Publications

Kebschull JM,  Richman EB, Ringach N, Friedmann D, Albarran E, Kolluru SS, Jones RC, Allen WE, Wang Y, Cho SW, Zhou H,  Ding JB, Chang HY, Deisseroth K, Quake SR, Luo L. Cerebellar nuclei evolved by repeatedly duplicating a conserved cell-type set. Science 370, eabd5059 (2020). DOI: 10.1126/science.abd5059

Huang L*, Kebschull JM*, Furth D, Musall S, Kaufman MT, Churchland AK, Zador AM. BRICseq bridges brain-wide interregional connectivity to neural activity and gene expression in single animals. Cell. 2020; 182(1), 117-188.e7.

Kebschull JM. DNA sequencing in high-throughput neuroanatomy. Journal of Chemical Neuroanatomy. 2019; 101653.

Kebschull JM, Zador AM. Cellular barcoding: lineage tracing, screening and beyond. Nature Methods. 2018; 15(11), 871-879.

Han Y*, Kebschull JM*, Campbell RAA*, Cowan D, Imhof F, Zador AM, Mrsic-Flogel TM. The logic of single-cell projections from visual cortex. Nature. 2018; 556(7699), 51-56.

Kebschull JM, Garcia da Silva P, Reid AP, Peikon ID, Albeanu DF, Zador AM. High-throughput mapping of single-neuron projections by sequencing of barcoded RNA. Neuron. 2016; 91(5), 975-987.