Elizabeth Grove

Elizabeth Grove obtained a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. She received post-doctoral training in London at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, where her interests in embryonic patterning began. In 1994, Dr. Grove joined the faculty at the University of Chicago in 1994, where she is now a Professor in the Department of Neurobiology.

Dr. Grove's is interested in the mechanisms that pattern vertebrate forebrain, with a focus on the map of functionally specialized areas in cerebral cortex. The cortical area map represents the anatomical organization of such higher brain functions as perception, planning and memory. Dr. Grove has studied two patterning centers, one at the rostral pole of the embryonic cortical vesicle, and another at the medial edge of the vesicle. The former produces Fibroblast Growth Factors, and the latter releases Wnt and Bone Morphogenetic proteins (BMPs). Her lab has found evidence that FGF8 imparts position along the rostral to caudal axis of the embryonic cortex, controlling where specific functional areas form. Consistent with such a role, ectopic FGF8 can duplicate areas and even split the cortical hemisphere into two halves, producing a full area map in the caudal half hemisphere. Recent evidence from the lab headed by Shubha Tole, who formerly worked with Dr. Grove as a postdoctoral fellow, reveals the Wnt/BMP source as an embryonic 'organizer' for the hippocampus. Together, these findings provide strong support for the hypothesis that patterning strategies and molecular mechanisms common to other parts of the embryo also pattern the cortical area map.