Dr. Downes studies how the spinal cord develops, using zebrafish as a model system.

Dr. Downes received his undergraduate degree from Johnson C Smith University in Charlotte, NC, and his Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis. He began studying zebrafish in his postdoctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania, and joined the faculty at UMass in 2005.

In his work, Dr. Downes has uncovered some fascinating connections between metabolism and movement. As a way to understand how the spinal cord coordinates movement between the two sides of the body, his lab began examining fish that weren’t coordinating their movement correctly and tracking down which genes had been altered in those individuals.

In one fish, the gene turned out to be DBT, a metabolic gene involved in breaking down certain amino acids from food. In humans, mutations in DBT cause maple syrup urine disease, a metabolic disorder that can lead to severe brain damage and death if not diagnosed at birth. This discovery allowed Dr. Downes to create a fish model of maple syrup urine disease, which can be studied to better understand why this mutation causes these symptoms. Intriguingly, similar metabolic problems have recently been implicated as contributing to some of the symptoms of autism and epilepsy as well.