Curriculum Vitae

Richard D. Smrt

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contact me
http://www.richardsmrt.com
(505) 272-6677
(505) 272-8082
4-28-07

CAREER GOAL and RESEARCH INTERESTES
My goal is to obtain excellent training in research as a biomedical graduate student at UNM and conduct research in the field of neuroscience. My research interests include understanding neuronal development and plasticity in diseased brains in order to establish possible treatments for devastating neurological diseases such as Autism and Rett syndrome.

EDUCATION
Aug. 1999-Dec. 2003:  B.S. in Psychology, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Concentration: Neuroscience. GPA 3.2

April 2004-May 2005: Registered part time student, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, GPA 3.7

August 2005-present: Graduate student, Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, NM. GPA 4.0

RESEARCH
2000-2003: Research Assistant, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Department of Psychology. Lab Instructor: Dr. Robert Holson
Project 1: To establish a rat model of IQ analysis using extensive standard behavioral testing.
Project 2: To analyze the effect of Enriched Housing Environments on rat behavior.

June 2003-August 2003: Research Assistant University of New Mexico, Department of Psychology. Supervisor: Nariman Arfai, graduate student, Dept of Psychology.
Project: To investigate lesion-induced neurogenesis in rat brains using microscopic measurements and statistical analysis.

April 2004-August 2005: Staff /Laboratory Technician, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Department of Neurosciences. Supervisor/Principal Investigator: Dr. Xinyu Zhao, Assistant Professor, Dept of Neurosciences
Duties: Establishing and maintaining the histology portion of the laboratory, maintaining general laboratory supplies and animal logs, maintaining lab web page and database, and collecting experimental data for 2 ongoing grants and 5 grant applications.
Leadership: Supervised 3 undergraduate students and trained one rotating graduate student on histological techniques
Project 1: To understand how genetic mutations affect maturation of new neurons in postnatal mouse brains using fluorescent imaging and quantification. (SFN 2005; Smrt et al., 2007, Neurobiology of Disease).
Project 2: To optimize migration of neural stem cells in rat stoke model using stereotaxic grafting and magnetic resonance imaging (the preliminary data was used in an NIH/COBRE grant renewal)

PROFESIONAL SOCIETY:
July 2005-present: Member of the Society for Neuroscience.

PUBLICATIONS
Basam Z. Barkho, Hongjun Song, James B. Aimone, Richard D. Smrt, Tomoko Kuwabara, Kinichi Nakashima, Fred H. Gage, and Xinyu Zhao. Identification of astrocyte-expressed factors that modulate neural stem/progenitor cell differentiation. Stem Cell and Dev. 2006.

Zhao X, Pak C, Smrt RD, Jin P. “Epigenetics and Neural Developmental Disorders” Epigenetics 2007 Apr;2(2):130-138. (invited meeting review).

Richard D Smrt, Julia Eaves, Basam Barkho, Tomoko Kuwabara, Kinichi Nakashima, Fred H Gage, and Xinyu Zhao. Mecp2 deficiency leads to delayed maturation and altered gene expression in hippocampal neurons. Neurobiol. of Diseases 2007 Jul;27(1):77-89.

Li X., Barkho BZ, Luo Y, Smrt RD, Liu C, Kuwabara T, Gage FH, and Zhao X#. Epigenetic regulation of stem cell mitogen FGF-2 by Mbd1 in adult neural stem/progenitor cells. J. Biol. Chem. 2008 (in press)

ABSTRACTS AND PRESENTATIONS
Abstracts:
Basam Barkho, Hongjun Song, Tomoko Kuwabara, Kinichi Nakashima, Richard D Smrt, Fred H Gage, and Xinyu Zhao*. Identification of astrocytes-expressed factors that affect neural stem/progenitor cell lineage determination. 34th Annual Meeting for the Society for Neuroscience, October 2004, San Diego, CA.

Julialee Eaves*, Richard Smrt, Basam Barkho, Fred Gage, Xinyu Zhao. “Function of MeCP2 in Post-natal Neurogenesis and Neuronal Maturation.” Undergraduate Research and Creativity Symposium, November 2004, UNM, Albuquerque NM.

Richard D. Smrt*, Julialee Eaves, Basam Z. Barkho, Chunmei Zhao, Tomoko Kuwabara, Kinichi Nakashima, Fred H Gage, and Xinyu Zhao. “Function of MeCP2 in postnatal neurogenesis and neuronal maturation.” 35th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, November 2005, Washington DC

Richard D. Smrt, Julialee Eaves, Basam Z. Barkho, Chunmei Zhao, Tomoko Kuwabara, Kinichi Nakashima, Fred H Gage, and Xinyu Zhao. “MeCP2 in postnatal neurogenesis and neuronal maturation.” UNM Neuroscience Day, March 2006, UNM, Albuquerque NM

Richard D. Smrt, Nicholas J. Santistevan*, Julialea Eaves-Egenes, Basam Z. Barkho, Chunmei Zhao, James B. Aimone, Fred H. Gage, Xinyu Zhao. “MeCP2 is an epigenetic regulator critical to neuronal maturation in brain development.” UNM Undergraduate Research and Creativity Symposium, April 2007, UNM, Albuquerque NM (Poster winner)

Rebecca Pfeiffer*, Richard D. Smrt, Yuping Luo, Xuekun Li, Keith Szulwach, Peng Jin, Xinyu Zhao. "Mecp2 regulates expression of microRNAs that are critical for neuronal development." UNM undergraduate research and creativity symposium, spring 2008

Richard D. Smrt, Rebecca Pfeiffer*, Xinyu Zhao. "Effect of Mecp2 on X-chromosome Inactivation in the Brain." October 2008 SACNAS conference.

Richard D. Smrt*, Rebecca Pfeiffer, Xinyu Zhao. “Effect of Mecp2 mutation on X-Chromosome inactivation in a novel mouse model of Rett syndrome." Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, November 2008, Washington DC

Invited oral presentation:
October 2005: Imaging eGFP expressing mature granule cell neurons in the mouse hippocampus using confocal microscopy. Microscopy Facility Open House, Cancer Research and Training Center, UNM.

Richard D. Smrt, Julialee Eaves, Basam Z. Barkho, Chunmei Zhao, Tomoko Kuwabara, Kinichi Nakashima, Fred H Gage, and Xinyu Zhao. “MeCP2 in postnatal neurogenesis and neuronal maturation.” UNM BSGP Student Research Day, March 2006, UNM, Albuquerque NM (2nd place poster winner)

RESEARCH SKILLS

• In vitro neuronal culture of hippocampal and cortical neurons.
• Animal surgery including intracranial stereotaxic neural stem cell transplantation surgery, anesthesia, and transcardial perfusion.
• General brightfield and standard fluorescent microscopy, stereology microscopy and laser confocal microscopy (training by Dr. Dan Peterson), and 2-photon microscopy (training by Dr. John Connor UNM).
• Proficient with image processing and statistical software Prism Graphpad, Microbrightfield Stereo Investigator and Neurolucida, NIH ImageJ, AxioVision, MS Excel, and Adobe Photoshop.
• Basic histological techniques such as tissue sectioning, immunohistochemistry, and microdissection.
• Standard behavioral testing of rodents including administration of the Morris Water Maze, Radial 8-Arm Maze, Barnes Maze, and visual discrimination.