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Charles Greer, PhD

Professor of Neurosurgery and of Neuroscience
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Additional Titles

Co Vice Chair of Research, Neurosurgery

Director, Interdepartmental Neuroscience Graduate Program

About

Titles

Professor of Neurosurgery and of Neuroscience

Co Vice Chair of Research, Neurosurgery; Director, Interdepartmental Neuroscience Graduate Program

Biography

Dr. Charles A. Greer is the Vice Chair for Research and holds the rank of Professor of Neuroscience. Dr. Greer also serves as Director of the Yale Interdepartmental Neuroscience Graduate Program. He has served as the President of the Association for Chemoreception Sciences, Chair of National Institutes of Health Study Sections and recently completed a term on the Advisory Council for the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communicative Disorders.

He has organized several national and international conferences and is frequently an invited speaker. Dr. Greer is an Associate Editor of The Journal of Comparative Neurology and Journal of Neuroscience and a member of the editorial boards of Frontiers in Neurogenomics, Frontiers in Neuroanatomy and Frontiers in Neuorgenesis and the Faculty of 1000. Dr. Greer has been the recipient of numerous awards recognizing his research accomplishments.

Appointments

Education & Training

PhD
University of Colorado (1978)
BA
University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (1971)
Postdoctoral Fellow
Yale School of Medicine

Research

Overview

Current Research Program

A major goal of my laboratory is understanding the basic mechanisms that contribute to the establishment of orderly topographic maps within the CNS, during both normal development and during regenerative events following injury or disease. We have been focusing our efforts on the olfactory system, in part because of the complexity of the map between the olfactory epithelium and the olfactory bulb. Axons sort into 1,000 functional subsets that are targeted with high specificity to olfactory bulb glomeruli.

Using both in vivo and in vitro models, we are currently isolating several mechanisms that may contribute to this complex reorganization including laminin, tenascin and the expression of putative odor receptors in growth cones. In related studies we continue to characterize a unique population of glial cells, ensheathing cells, found in the olfactory nerve. While elsewhere in the mature CNS glia are an impediment to axon growth, the ensheathing cell glia support axon extension and targeting throughout life.

We recently demonstrated that the growth promoting effects of ensheathing cells are not limited to olfactory receptor neurons but are also seen in other populations of neurons. Particularly exciting, our recent studies demonstrate that the ensheathing cells remain pluri-potential and that when implanted into demyelinated spinal cord can adopt a myelinating phenotype which remyelinates the axons and contributes to a restoration of normal conduction velocities.

In parallel studies we are examining the molecular and synaptic organization of the olfactory bulb glomeruli. Using RT-PCR we are mapping the distribution of subsets of olfactory receptor cell axons in glomeruli to gain insights into the topography of odor-ligand maps in the olfactory bulb. In addition, working with colleagues, we are using a GFP tag to test hypotheses regarding the specificity of synaptic organization within glomeruli. Second, using antibodies synaptic vesicle related proteins and confocal microscopy we have begun to describe a hitherto unrecognized segregation of local and projection synaptic circuits in the glomeruli.

It may be that this segregation underlies the lateral inhibitory systems that are believed to be operative in the olfactory system. Beyond my colleagues in Neurosurgery, I maintain active collaborations with the following Departments at Yale: Neurology, Neurobiology, Anesthesiology and Ophthamology. In addition, I have collaborative studies with members of the faculty at Columbia University, Emory University, The Rockefeller, University of Maryland and University of Colorado.

Relationship of Research to Neurological Disease
Increasingly, the neurological sciences are focusing on intervention strategies that will both limit the debilitating consequences of injury/disease as well as increase the probability of successful regeneration of pathways and connections in the CNS. In order to facilitate these processes it is necessary for us to understand the molecular and cellular events operative during axon extension, target selection and synapse formation. The studies described above directly assess those questions and, particularly in the case of the ensheathing cells, offer the possibility of clinical application in the near future.

Fate mapping of olfactory bulb projection neurons

The role of axon:axon adhesion in establishing sensory maps

Cell surface and diffusible molecules influencing the extension and convergence of axons

The timing and molecular mechanisms mediating the development of 3-layer piriform cortex

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)

Central Nervous System; Gene Expression Profiling; Neuroglia; Neurons; Nose

Research at a Glance

Yale Co-Authors

Frequent collaborators of Charles Greer's published research.

Publications

2024

2015

2014

2013

2011

2010

2009

Academic Achievements & Community Involvement

  • activity

    Development

  • activity

    mRNA translation in axons

  • honor

    Distinguished Professor

  • honor

    Max Mozell Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Chemical Senses

  • honor

    Distinguished Visiting Professor

Get In Touch

Contacts

Academic Office Number
Mailing Address

Neurosurgery

PO Box 208082

New Haven, CT 06520-8082

United States