🧬NeuroBioImpact (NBI) Lab Home🧬

🎯 Mission Statement

To advance integrated STEM research uniting neuroscience, developmental biology, alcohol studies, environmental science, and cancer biology, with a special emphasis on health disparities, to foster discoveries that improve human health and strengthen community resilience.

🌟 About the Lab

Led by Dr. Maria Agapito, the NeuroBioImpact (NBI) Lab investigates how biological, behavioral, and environmental factors converge to shape human health, disease, and development. We focus on a unique interdisciplinary research portfolio spanning neuroscience, developmental biology, alcohol studies, environmental factors, cancer biology, and their combined impact on human pathology.

By leveraging cell culture techniques and the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans, our team explores questions that bridge molecular biology, behavior, and public health. Through this work, we aim to generate transformative insights that advance scientific understanding and promote community well-being.

🔍 Research Approach

Our lab’s multidisciplinary research strategy focuses on:

• Neuroscience and computational modeling of neural networks: Integrating experimental data with advanced computational simulations to explore brain function and behavior in C. elegans.

• Developmental biology, including investigations of neuronal developmental abnormalities and their downstream effects.

• Stress-response pathways and related behavioral outcomes under various biological and environmental stressors.

• Alcohol and substance exposure models to study their impact on physiology and behavior.

• Environmental toxicology, examining compounds such as BPA alternatives and nanoparticles to assess metabolic and oxidative stress effects.

• Cancer detection through the exploration of non-invasive biomarkers and chemosensory responses.

• Use of biological GFP markers to visualize and quantify protein expression in vivo.

• Use of neuronal markers to investigate neuronal development, differentiation, and migration.

By combining integrative computational modeling, molecular tools, behavioral assays, and environmental exposure studies, we investigate how these diverse factors converge to influence health, disease, and development across generations.