After graduating with honors with a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC), Dr. Stroh joined the laboratory of Dr. David Gutmann in the Washington University Neurofibromatosis (NF) Center as postdoctoral research fellow.
Matt’s interest in research was first piqued during his undergraduate years when he started working in the laboratory of Dr. Brian Ackley, whose research focuses on the interactions between nerve cells (neurons) and their environment. During his time in the Ackley lab, he worked on axon guidance in the worm. Ultimately, he spearheaded a project that used chimeric/recombinant proteins to investigate neuron development.
After receiving his Bachelor’s of Science in Biochemistry degree from the University of Kansas in 2012, he received a Neurological and Rehabilitation Sciences Fellowship through the Landon Center on Aging, and initiated multiple projects and collaborations under the guidance of Dr. Hao Zhu. Dr. Stroh’s dissertation project aimed to characterize the effects of an important protein called NCB5OR on neural tissue development. He found that NCB5OR deficiency in the mouse brain had dramatic effects on iron and metabolic balance, which are disturbed in disorders like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. In addition to this research, Dr. Stroh helped design and develop a novel method of detecting methylation in the mitochondrial genome using advanced mass spectrometry.
Dr. Stroh’s work in the Gutmann Laboratory is primarily focused on understanding how growth is controlled in brain cells relative to other tissues. Matt is particularly interested in determining how cells differentially use a limited number of critical signaling molecules to create a high degree of functional diversity.
To further his exciting research, Dr. Stroh is a fellow of the Siteman Cancer Center and was awarded a position on the Hematology T32 Training Grant. We welcome Dr. Stroh to the Gutmann Laboratory!