Murray Blackmore, Ph.D.

Murray has moved on

Now he is an Assistant Professor at Marquette University - Way to Go!

The goals of my laboratory are to clarify the molecular mechanisms that control the growth of axons from nerve cells, and to use that information to create novel therapies for nervous system injury. We have harnessed automated microscopy and high content analysis technologies that enable us to test many hundreds of candidate genes in neurite outgrowth assays. These culture screens identify novel genes that can block or stimulate axon outgrowth. Because we believe that combinations of genes will be most effective, we work to develop molecular tools that can overexpress and/or knock down multiple gene targets in a single cell. We are currently testing candidate genes in a model of spinal cord injury in rodents. We use viral particles to deliver our overexpression or knockdown constructs to corticospinal motor neurons, and then assess whether these gene therapy manipulations succeed in promoting axon regeneration after injury to the spinal cord.


I attended Stanford University as an undergraduate, where I conducted research on the impact of fire and cattle grazing on dry tropical forests. I spent my summers in Hawaii doing field work, which was not unpleasant. After graduating I spent a year teaching fourth grade as an Americorp volunteer, and then spent a year bicycling from Saint Paul, Minnesota to Santiago, Chile. I always knew I was destined for research but I guessed correctly that work and family responsibilities would prevent volunteer work and high adventure as I grew older. I'm glad now I seized the opportunity when I had it.

I returned to academia in 1999, and spent six years as a graduate student at the University of Minnesota with Paul Letourneau, the Father of the Growth Cone. I used the embryonic chicken as a model system to study the age-dependent loss in axon regeneration, and focused on the expression of various adhesive receptors. This experience convinced me that if I really wanted to discover genes that explain why adult neurons regenerate so poorly, a traditional gene-by-gene approach would be too slow. I therefore joined the lab of Dr. Lemmon and Dr. Bixby at the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, and adopted high throughput technologies to test candidate genes en masse. This screening approach succeeded in identifying exciting new candidate genes that may control the ability of neurons to regenerate axons, such as the KLF transcription factors and doublecortin. In 2009 I was promoted to Research Assistant Professor and established a laboratory devoted to following up on these and other "hit" genes.