The Ullian lab is located in the Koret Vision Center at the University of California, San Francisco.

We study how functional connections are made in the brain. Understanding this process has a direct impact on numerous human disorders and diseases where these connections are impaired such as autism spectrum disorders and Alzheimer’s disease.

We are investigating a number of ways that these connections can be modified both by activity within the network of neurons and by an unexpected regulator of synapses, the astrocyte.

For these studies we use a variety of techniques including purification of neurons and glia for cell culture, patch clamp recording from neurons both in culture and in slices, mRNA and miRNA arrays, and molecular techniques to look at genes that are regulated by neurons and glia. And more recently we have begun to study synapse formation and function in the context of human disease using iPS cells.