Lauren Walker is an Assistant Professor of Molecular and Systems Biology at Geisel School of Medicine. She received her PhD in Neurosciences from Washington University in St. Louis with Dr. Aaron DiAntonio, where she studied a molecular pathway that degenerates damaged axons, which wire the nervous system. She trained as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Michael Granato at the University of Pennsylvania. There, she established a zebrafish model to study how motor axons find their correct muscle target and form appropriate synapses during both development and regeneration. This muscle target-selectivity is essential for coordinated movement, and it is often impaired when mammalian peripheral axons regenerate. Research in the Walker Lab couples in vivo live imaging, molecular and cellular biology, and single-cell and spatial transcriptomics to gain mechanistic insight into the cells and signals that build, maintain, and regenerate neuronal circuitry. The long-term goal of Dr. Walker’s research is to identify therapeutic targets that may improve regeneration outcomes across the mammalian nervous system.