Research story · 03
Surgery at the synapse
We are building molecular tools to remove synapses from one chosen type of neuron, and to read what sits inside a single kind of connection.
Photo: UA College of Medicine – Phoenix Media Productions, 2017
The question
What happens to behavior when you remove just one type of connection in a circuit?
A circuit is only as informative as the tools we have to take it apart. Most methods switch whole cells on or off. We want to reach one kind of connection between them.
The story · 2:29
Two tools the lab is building to reach a single kind of connection between neurons: one to take it out, one to read what sits inside it.
Chapters
- Synapse surgery
- US patent application 2025/0368706 A1, pending · Inventors Deveroux Ferguson and Hee-Dae Kim, University of Arizona
- STAPL-Ex
- Builds on split TurboID, published by Cho et al., PNAS 2020. In development; the labelling step is not yet demonstrated.
- Support
- University of Arizona Provost's Investment Fund · Tech Launch Arizona
- Brain model
- Allen Mouse Brain Common Coordinate Framework v3, Allen Institute for Brain Science
Big questions
What we want to know
- 01Which single connections drive stress-related behavior?
- 02Which proteins sit together at a synapse, and how does stress rearrange them?
- 03Can precise synapse removal become a research tool, or one day a therapy?
Methods we use and have published
Key papers
Mol Psychiatry · 2021
Shisa6 mediates cell-type specific regulation of depression in the nucleus accumbens
Kim HD, Wei J, Call T, Quintus NT, Summers AJ, Carotenuto S, …, Qiu S, Ferguson D
STAR Protoc · 2024
Protocol for Xenium spatial transcriptomics studies using fixed frozen mouse brain sections
Ma X, Chen P, Wei J, Zhang J, Chen C, Zhao H, …, Dai Z, Qiu S
Funding
- University of Arizona Provost's Investment Fund, Development of Molecular Brain Surgery Tools (2023–2026; H.-D. Kim, PI)
- Tech Launch Arizona (patent UA22-181)
Collaborators
- Hee-Dae Kim, co-inventor
- Jinhyun Kim, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (mGRASP connectivity mapping)
For collaborators and industry
Patent application US 2025/0368706 A1, "Synapse surgery tools and associated methods for neural circuit-specific synapse ablation and modification" (inventors Deveroux Ferguson and Hee-Dae Kim; University of Arizona; published December 4, 2025). Interested in using or licensing these tools?
Contact Dr. Ferguson or Tech Launch Arizona
