Martha U. Gillette

About

Martha U. Gillette is the Alumni Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Illinois, with additional professorships in Neuroscience, Molecular and Integrative Physiology, Bioengineering, Biomedical and Translational Sciences, the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. She holds a B.A. in Biology from Grinnell College, an M.S. in Zoology from the University of Hawaii, a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Toronto, and completed postdoctoral training at the University of California-Santa Cruz. Her research centers on the neurobiology of time, engineering neuronal development and repair, and the emergent behaviors of integrated neuronal systems. Gillette's work focuses on understanding the signals that engage the circadian clock in the brain, the sub-cellular micro-environments that shape neuronal dendrites during development and repair, and the behaviors of neuronal clusters. She investigates the central role of the brain's circadian clock, located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), in organizing body functions around the daily cycle of light and darkness, which has broad implications for health and disease resistance. Her research explores how malfunctioning of the circadian clock contributes to clinical disorders such as sleep disturbances, movement disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Additionally, Gillette's neuroengineering…

Research topics

• Neuroscience
• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Medicine
• Biology
• Anatomy
• Materials science
• Biomedical engineering
• Physical medicine and rehabilitation
• Nanotechnology

Selected publications

• Perspective: The promise of multi-cellular engineered living systems

  APL Bioengineering · 2018-10-11 · 162 citations

  articleOpen access

  Recent technological breakthroughs in our ability to derive and differentiate induced pluripotent stem cells, organoid biology, organ-on-chip assays, and 3-D bioprinting have all contributed to a heightened interest in the design, assembly, and manufacture of living systems with a broad range of potential uses. This white paper summarizes the state of the emerging field of "multi-cellular engineered living systems," which are composed of interacting cell populations. Recent accomplishments are d…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Reactive oxygen species-responsive drug delivery systems for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases

  Biomaterials · 2019-06-20 · 148 citations

  review
  PublisherDOI

• Epi-illumination gradient light interference microscopy for imaging opaque structures

  Nature Communications · 2019-10-16 · 94 citations

  articleOpen access

  Multiple scattering and absorption limit the depth at which biological tissues can be imaged with light. In thick unlabeled specimens, multiple scattering randomizes the phase of the field and absorption attenuates light that travels long optical paths. These obstacles limit the performance of transmission imaging. To mitigate these challenges, we developed an epi-illumination gradient light interference microscope (epi-GLIM) as a label-free phase imaging modality applicable to bulk or opaque sa…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Multimodal Chemical Analysis of the Brain by High Mass Resolution Mass Spectrometry and Infrared Spectroscopic Imaging

  Analytical Chemistry · 2018-09-06 · 69 citations

  articleOpen access

  The brain functions through chemical interactions between many different cell types, including neurons and glia. Acquiring comprehensive information on complex, heterogeneous systems requires multiple analytical tools, each of which have unique chemical specificity and spatial resolution. Multimodal imaging generates complementary chemical information via spatially localized molecular maps, ideally from the same sample, but requires method enhancements that span from data acquisition to interpre…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Circadian rhythm of redox state regulates membrane excitability in hippocampal CA1 neurons

  European Journal of Neuroscience · 2019-01-07 · 41 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Behaviors, such as sleeping, foraging, and learning, are controlled by different regions of the rat brain, yet they occur rhythmically over the course of day and night. They are aligned adaptively with the day-night cycle by an endogenous circadian clock in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), but local mechanisms of rhythmic control are not established. The SCN expresses a ~24-hr oscillation in reduction-oxidation that modulates its own neuronal excitability. Could circadian redox oscillations co…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01NS033240

  NIH · $787k · 2000

• NIH Grant R01HL086870

  NIH · $1.6M · 2013

• NIH Grant R01HL092571

  NIH · $967k · 2012

Frequent coauthors

• Jonathan V. Sweedler

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  59 shared

• Hyunjoon Kong

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  39 shared

• Jian Ding

  Wannan Medical College

  28 shared

• Larry J. Millet

  University of Tennessee at Knoxville

  28 shared

• Gabriel Popescu

  28 shared

• Jennifer W. Mitchell

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  25 shared

• Gordon F. Buchanan

  University of Miami

  19 shared

• Rhanor Gillette

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  15 shared

Labs

• The Clockworks LabPI

Awards & honors

• NSF BRAIN EAGER (2014-17)
• NIH BRAIN Innovation Award (2015-18)
• Women in Neuroscience Lifetime Achievement Award
• AAAS Fellow

Similar researchers at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

• Benita S. Katzenellenbogenh-126
• Milan K. Bagchih-51
• Erik R. Nelsonh-44