Matt Gibson, Ph.D.
Investigator and President of the Graduate School
Team
Team
Meet our team
Lacey Ellington
Senior Research Technician
BA Biology, William Jewell College (2005)
Profile
RESEARCH SUMMARY: I’ve been a technician at the Stowers Institute since 2005. My first years were spent supporting many of the research labs from within the Tissue Culture Core. There, I worked with mouse ES cells, generated mutant and knock-in lines, and performed cryopreservation and IVF. I joined the Gibson lab in 2012, where I now work with the sea anemone, Nematostella vectensis, as well as corals. My primary goals are to establish new genetic tools and support the expansion of these research models within our lab. I rely primarily on CRISPR/Cas9-mediated homologous recombination for targeting and am interested in establishing methods for recombination.
Abby Fowler
Administrative Program Coordinator
Gibson Lab
Profile
I support the Gibson Lab, organize the Stowers Research Conferences series, and provide administrative support to the President of the Graduate School of the Stowers Institute. I love working with various teams at the Institute to plan both scientific and social events that help foster collaboration, creativity, and fun. Seeing people from all over the world come together and enjoy themselves while knowing that I played a part in making that happen brings me a lot of joy. Before coming to Stowers in 2018, I worked in various medical offices including an Ophthalmology surgery center and at a family medicine practice. My passion for health care initially drew me to Stowers and it has been a pleasure to provide administrative support to such dedicated, hard-working, brilliant scientists who focus on advancements in medical research day in and day out.
Matt Gibson
Investigator and President of the Graduate School
Stowers Institute for Medical Research
Development and Regeneration, Genetics and Genomics, Evolutionary Biology, Systems Biology
Courses Taught
Evolution and Model Systems; Laboratory Rotation; Thesis laboratory
Profile
Matt Gibson, Ph.D., is a developmental biologist and an Investigator at the Stowers Institute. Gibson joined Stowers in 2006 and was named President of the Graduate School in 2024 after serving as Dean since 2019.
Profile
RESEARCH SUMMARY:In complex animals, such as humans, stem cells lose potency during embryonic development as they become restricted to defined linages. Less complex animals, such as Cnidarians, typically host stem cells with a higher level of potency into adulthood, giving rise to astounding capacity to regenerate and withstand genomic insult. Recent studies in the Anthozoan Nematostella vectensis have shone light on the presence of a population of cells, marked by traditional germline markers, with the capacity to give rise to germ cells and neurons. This evidences the lack of adherence to the Weismann Barrier, a feature present in other Cnidarians such as Hydractinia (which possesses adult pluripotent stem cells). The relative body plan complexity of Nematostella, when compared to Cnidarians with proven pluripotent stem cells, makes it an ideal model for investigating cell type specification based on niche. To understand cell type specification and the interaction of stem cells with their surrounding somatic tissue it is necessary to take a broadscale multi-disciplinary approach. As a ‘full-stack’ biologist I aim to harness spatial multi-omics profiling, microscopy and genetic manipulation to untangle the relationships between chromatin state, transcription factors, gene expression, cellular environment and their relative changes to generate a profile of stem cells and their states. Understanding stem cell differentiation in the starlet sea anemone will not only enhance our overall understanding of stem cell evolution but will also position Nematostella as a better model for studying human health and disease.
Profile
Anna Klompen is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Gibson Lab.
RESEARCH SUMMARY: I am an evolutionary biologist and toxinologist fascinated by how complex traits are shaped within the context of specialized ecological interactions over evolutionary time. My research takes advantage of the diversity within the venom system of the phylum Cnidaria (jellyfish, hydroids, sea anemones, corals). Cnidarians deploy a unique suite of toxins through a decentralized venom system composed of numerous "stinging cells" or nematocysts, the most ubiquitous type of cnidae (characteristic feature of Cnidaria). Nematocysts have been described as one of the most complex secretory products, in part due to the highly intricate subcellular features that distinguish the ~30 subtypes of nematocysts present across the group. Despite a long history of morphological, histological, and more recent genomic studies on this cell type, little is understood about how these nematocysts and their respective subcellular structures are assembled within the cell. In my current research, I am exploring the molecular dynamics of cnidae assembly across the different morphological types in the model Nematostella through the integration of modern sequencing strategies (single-cell sequencing, probe-sequencing), exploratory proteomics, and functional genomic approaches.
Christof Nolte
Research Specialist II
Gibson Lab
Ph.D. (Experimental Medicine), 2002, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Dissertation title: “The role of a retinoic acid response element in setting the anterior border of Hoxd4 expression in the developing hindbrain”
Advisor: Mark Featherstone
M.Sc. (Biology), 1996, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Dissertation title: “Cloning msx and dlx homeobox-containing genes from the Mexican axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum)”
Advisor: Marc Ekker and John Armstrong
B.Sc. (Honors) with Biotechnology Option, 1994, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Honors Project title: “Cranial neural crest cell identity is pre-programmed prior to migration in the Mexican axolotl embryo”
Advisor: John Armstrong
Profile
RESEARCH SUMMARY: I have always been fascinated with pattern formation, specifically the role that transcription factors play in orchestrating the formation of structures and tissues through the regulation of their downstream targets. Early in my career, I was lucky to examine these concepts in the Mexican axolotl, a paedomorphic salamander with incredible regeneration potential, through embryonic tissue grafts and the cloning and identification of transcription factors involved in the formation of the head cartilage. I then moved on to study the regulation of Hox genes in the development of the mouse nervous system. First, in Mark Featherstone’s laboratory where I studied the mechanism of retinoic acid response elements (RAREs) in setting the anterior boundaries of Hox gene expression in the embryonic head, and then in Robb Krumlauf’s laboratory where I characterized shadow enhancers and a potential boundary element that contributed to the expression pattern of HoxB genes in the developing gut, heart and neural tube. In Robb’s lab, my interest in evo-dev developed where Hox regulatory regions were demonstrated to be functionally conserved between mouse, zebrafish, chicken, and lamprey. Working with Cnidarians, I will be examining similar regulatory pathways in defining and patterning the anatomical features of these animals and characterizing ancestral genetic modules that were established early in the development of the metazoans.
Profile
Emma is a postdoctoral research associate in the Gibson lab.
RESEARCH SUMMARY: My research focuses on understanding the genetic regulatory framework and evolutionary implications of an ancient developmental segmentation program in early branching animals such as sea anemone and corals and understand their implication for evolutionary novelty
Profile
RESEARCH SUMMARY: As a Biologist with a particular interest for developmental biology, my research has focused mostly on understanding how Hox genes, the major family of transcription factors orchestrating animal development, translate their molecular activity into the extraordinary diversity of forms and physiological functions exhibited in metazoans.
Jordan Unger
Research Technician II
Gibson Lab
Bachelor's of Science: General Biology at Northwest Missouri State University
Master's of Science: Cellular and Molecular Biology at University of Missouri- Kansas City
Profile
RESEARCH SUMMARY: I have been interested in the field of microbiology since my time in undergrad, where I attempted to cultivate a member of the Planctomycetota phylum from freshwater samples. During my master’s research, I studied whether the number of phosphate groups and acyl tails on the lipopolysaccharides of gram-negative bacteria contributed to how well antimicrobial peptides could kill the cells. I also cloned a deep mutational library from the native thanatin sequence on the pSLAY plasmid. This system allows inducible expression of the peptide sequence on the outer membrane of the individual bacterial cell and can test if one specific variant has antimicrobial effects. I’m excited to apply this previous microbiology knowledge towards characterizing the potential novel protists species in the Gibson Lab.
Stefanie Williams
Predoctoral Researcher
B.S., Biochemistry, Heinrich Heine University, Germany
Joined: 2022
Profile
RESEARCH SUMMARY: The successful completion of meiosis results in haploid gametes (i.e. eggs and sperm) and is essential for sexual reproduction. For humans, failure in doing so may result in infertility, miscarriages and children born with chromosome aneuploidies such as trisomy 21, Klinefelter syndrome, Turner syndrome and others. I will establish Nematostella vectensis as a new meiosis research organism as their ability to produce hundreds of gametes upon simple temperature and light cues enable a novel way to study meiotic processes.
Ruohan Zhong
Predoctoral Researcher
BS (Ag) Applied Bioscience, Zhejiang University (2016)
Joined: 2017
Profile
RESEARCH SUMMARY: Nematostella vectensis is among the earliest branching animals possessing a nervous system. This unique phylogenetic position, together with features such as a large repertoire of chemical neurotransmission-related genes, impressive regenerative abilities, endodermal neurogenesis, and regional neural centralizations, makes Nematostella an informative model to study early evolution of the nervous system. By investigating the architecture and function of the nervous system in Nematostella, I seek to better understand the molecular mechanisms that were utilized to build the earliest nervous systems and support their functions following the emergence of neurons over 700 million years ago.