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Whited Lab

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Principal Investigator

Jessica Whited, Ph.D.

Portrait of Jessica Whited, standing in front of her chalkboard

The Whited lab focuses on limb regeneration in axolotl salamanders. We develop tools to manipulate gene expression during limb regeneration, and explore signaling events following wound healing that initiate the regenerative process.

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Contact Information
Sherman Fairchild, 1st Floor, 7 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138
jessica_whited@harvard.edu
Faculty Profile

Faculty Assistant

Hani Singer
7 Divinity Avenue, Sherman Fairchild, 1st Floor
Cambridge, MA 02138
hani_singer@fas.harvard.edu
(617) 495-5830
Image of Jessica Whited, Ph.D.

Jessica Whited, Ph.D.

  • Assistant Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology
  • Principal Faculty
    Harvard Stem Cell Institute

Jessica Whited’s laboratory is dedicated to understanding limb regeneration in axolotl salamanders. Her work focuses on developing genetic tools to manipulate gene expression at specific points in time during limb regeneration, and exploring early signaling events following wound healing that initiate the regenerative process.

Jessica Whited earned a B.A. in Philosophy and a B.S. in Biological Sciences from the University of Missouri. She obtained her Ph.D. in Biology from MIT, where she studied in Dr. Paul Garrity’s laboratory. Her thesis focused on molecular mechanisms controlling the development and maintenance of cellular architectures in the Drosophila nervous system. In carrying out this research, Dr. Whited became interested in processes that may be required long after initial developmental events to ensure cells do not revert to immature behaviors, as well as processes that provoke such events in response to injury.

Dr. Whited worked in the laboratory of Dr. Cliff Tabin (Harvard Medical School Department of Genetics) as a postdoc studying total limb regeneration in axolotl salamanders. During this work, she developed several molecular tools that can be used to interrogate regenerating axolotl limbs.

Whited ran her first research group at the Brigham Regenerative Medicine Center, BWH Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School. She joined HSCRB as an assistant professor in 2019.

Lab Overview

Nearly two million Americans have undergone limb amputation due to injury or disease, and this number is expected to rise. Yet no biological therapeutic has been devised to address this problem. Humans and other mammals have extremely limited regenerative capabilities in their limbs, but axolotl salamanders – whose limbs are anatomically similar to ours – can replace entire lost limbs throughout life.

This amazing feat presents an opportunity to learn about natural cellular reprogramming in animals. But crucial molecular mechanistic details about how axolotls regenerate limbs has yet to be revealed.

Our laboratory has developed powerful tools to investigate these mechanisms,  as understanding limb regeneration in these animals can inform the way we approach regenerative medicine in humans.

Photo of an axolotl salamander in a tank
Axolotl salamander in the Whited laboratory
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Areas of Investigation

  • Systemic effects of amputation and their influence on localized regeneration

    Microscopy image of an axolotl blastema

  • The molecular biology of how blastema cells are specified

    Microscopy image: green blobs, red lines

  • Development of more robust genetic tools for studying regeneration in axolotls

    Microscopy image of limb regeneration
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Featured Publications

  • Leigh ND, Dunlap GS, Johnson K, Mariano R, Oshiro R, Wong AY, Bryant DM, Miller BM, Ratner A, Chen A, Ye WW, Haas BJ, Whited JL. 2018. Transcriptomic landscape of the blastema niche in regenerating adult axolotl limbs at single-cell resolution. Nature communications. 9(1):5153. Pubmed: 30514844 DOI:10.1038/s41467-018-07604-0
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  • Bryant DM, Johnson K, DiTommaso T, Tickle T, Couger MB, Payzin-Dogru D, Lee TJ, Leigh ND, Kuo TH, Davis FG, Bateman J, Bryant S, Guzikowski AR, Tsai SL, Coyne S, Ye WW, Freeman RM, Peshkin L, Tabin CJ, Regev A, Haas BJ, Whited JL. 2017. A Tissue-Mapped Axolotl De Novo Transcriptome Enables Identification of Limb Regeneration Factors. Cell reports. 18(3):762-776. Pubmed: 28099853 DOI:S2211-1247(16)31770-3
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  • Bryant DM, Sousounis K, Farkas JE, Bryant S, Thao N, Guzikowski AR, Monaghan JR, Levin M, Whited JL. 2017. Repeated removal of developing limb buds permanently reduces appendage size in the highly-regenerative axolotl. Developmental biology. 424(1):1-9. Pubmed: 28235582 DOI:S0012-1606(16)30873-9
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  • Farkas JE, Freitas PD, Bryant DM, Whited JL, Monaghan JR. 2016. Neuregulin-1 signaling is essential for nerve-dependent axolotl limb regeneration. Development (Cambridge, England). 143(15):2724-31. Pubmed: 27317805 DOI:10.1242/dev.133363
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  • Whited JL, Lehoczky JA, Tabin CJ. 2012. Inducible genetic system for the axolotl. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 109(34):13662-7. Pubmed: 22869739 DOI:10.1073/pnas.1211816109
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  • Whited JL, Cassell A, Brouillette M, Garrity PA. 2004. Dynactin is required to maintain nuclear position within postmitotic Drosophila photoreceptor neurons. Development (Cambridge, England). 131(19):4677-86. Pubmed: 15329347
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