Neil Dani
Assistant Professor, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology
Dr. Dani graduated from the University of Rochester with a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry followed by a Master’s degree at New York Medical College. He earned his Ph.D. degree from Vanderbilt University and carried out dissertation research on extracellular signal transduction in the laboratory of Dr. Kendal Broadie. To further investigate how extracellular signals impact mammalian brain development and function, he joined the laboratory of Dr. Maria Lehtinen at Boston Children’s Hospital. As a postdoctoral researcher and an instructor at Harvard Medical School, he focused on the choroid plexus, which is a key source of extracellular signals in the developing brain that also functions as a brain barrier throughout life. Dr. Dani and collaborators have generated the first cell atlas of the choroid plexus in the mouse brain and have innovated live imaging tools to visualize its function in real time. As an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at Vanderbilt University, he will continue research on the choroid plexus to investigate its roles in development, brain function and contributions to neurological disease.
In his free time he enjoys music, percussion drumming, history of science, podcasts on a variety of subjects, and dabbling in computers.