Year 3

The goal of this work has been to develop optogenetic technology for the study of stem cells. Major aims include optogenetic technology development and dissemination/distribution/collaboration with stem cell scientists. This work has progressed well, and our work (optogenetics) was recently named method of the year across all fields of life science and engineering, by Nature Methods:
Deisseroth K (2011). Optogenetics. Nature Methods, 8:26-9.

References:
Weick JP, Johnson MA, Skroch SP, Williams JC, Deisseroth K, Zhang SC. Functional control of transplantable human ESC-derived neurons via optogenetic targeting. Stem Cells. Epub 2010 Sep 8.

Tønnesen J, Parish CL, Sørensen AT, Andersson A, Lundberg C, Deisseroth K, Arenas E, Lindvall O, Kokaia M. Functional integration of grafted neural stem cell-derived dopaminergic neurons monitored by optogenetics in an in vitro Parkinson model.PLoS One. 2011 Mar 4;6(3):e17560.

Stroh A, Tsai HC, Wang LP, Zhang F, Kressel J, Aravanis A, Santhanam N, Deisseroth K, Konnerth A, Schneider MB. Tracking stem cell differentiation in the setting of automated optogenetic stimulation. Stem Cells. 2011 Jan;29(1):78-88. doi: 10.1002/stem.558.