6th Annual Waggoner Center Advance

March 23, 2018

Graduate Student, Harris Lab

Emma Erickson is a doctoral candidate in the Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology researching the molecular mechanisms underlying alcohol use disorders. The neuroimmune system has recently been identified as an important target of alcohol. As the primary neuroimmune effector cell-types, microglia and astrocytes are implicated in alcohol-induced perturbation of brain gene expression. Emma is studying how alcohol dependence alters gene expression networks in these cell types.

In previous work, she identified astrocyte-specific transcriptome responses to voluntary chronic alcohol consumption. A set of calcium-related genes was among the alcohol-induced changes specific to astrocytes. Emma is also investigating how astrocyte calcium elevations can affect alcohol consumption.

The National Institutes of Health awarded Emma a National Research Service Award in 2017. She graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2014 with a BS in Biological Sciences.