Corinne Houart established her original research niche and gained international visibility during her postdoctoral training, identifying the anterior neural border as a key organizer required for forebrain regionalization and showing that specification of forebrain regions takes place at neural plate stage. These findings, published in Nature, changed our understanding of forebrain development, demonstrating the importance of early decisions in this process. Over the past 15 years, Prof Houart's group has become an international expert in the molecular and cellular mechanisms that drive zebrafish forebrain development and the mechanisms underlying vertebrate brain regionalisation. Her group has recently successfully embarked in identifying similarities and divergences between zebrafish and mouse early forebrain regionalization. Moreover, in the last 5 years, Prof Houart has pioneered the use of genome editing in zebrafish and devoted part of our research effort in understanding motor neurodegeneration. They key contributions so far are: 1) Identification of the ANB organizer in zebrafish and mouse, 2) identification of the Wnt/Bcatenin pathway as a key regulator of early forebrain regionalisaton 3) Demonstration of the role of the Wnt antagonist Dkk1 in cell motility, via a Wnt/cateninindependent route. 4) Identification of the complex interplay between transcription factors and signals in i) telencephalic arealisation (Foxg1/Wnt) and ii) telencephalon vs eye fate decisions (Rx3/BMP); 5) Identification of BMP as functional target in spastic paraplegia; and 6) Uncovering of non-nuclear function of RNA splicing factors in motor development and degeneration.
