Rate My Professor Zirong Gu

Gu’s laboratory integrates multidisciplinary approaches across molecular, circuit, and behavioral levels, utilizing techniques including single-cell transcriptomics, sophisticated viral tracing, machine learning-assisted brain-wide circuitry mapping, cell-type and action-specific Cal-light tagging, closed-loop optogenetic manipulation, calcium imaging, Neuropixels recordings, and computational modeling of neural dynamics. He has earned notable awards such as the K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (2020-present), the NARSAD Young Investigator Award from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (2019-2022), the SFN Plexon Presenter Award (2023), and several earlier fellowships including Richard A. Akeson Traveling Fellowships and poster presentation awards. Key publications include “Control of species-dependent cortico-motoneuronal connections underlying manual dexterity” (Science, 2017), “Skilled Movements Require Non-apoptotic Bax/Bak Pathway-Mediated Corticospinal Circuit Reorganization” (Neuron, 2017), “Axon Fasciculation, Mediated by Transmembrane Semaphorins, Is Critical for the Establishment of Segmental Specificity of Corticospinal Circuits” (Journal of Neuroscience, 2023), “Semaphorin-Mediated Corticospinal Axon Elimination Depends on the Activity-Induced Bax/Bak-Caspase Pathway” (Journal of Neuroscience, 2020), and “Dopamine-mediated formation of a memory module in the nucleus accumbens for goal-directed navigation” (2024).