Dr. Kaela S. Singleton
Postdoctoral Fellow Emory University
PhD in Neuroscience Georgetown University
Dr. Kaela S. Singleton was in seventh grade when a group of volunteers from the University of Georgia visited her middle school for a neuroscience outreach experience. Although she had never been much of a “science girl,” Kaela was fascinated by the animal brains the outreach group had brought—how could these squishy balls make animals (and people) who they were? Now, as a postdoc at Emory University, Kaela has fully embraced her “science girl” identity and uses her skills as a molecular neuroscientist to understand how the brain works by studying what happens when disease causes brain function to go awry.
After that transformative outreach experience, Kaela was on a mission to study neuroscience. Although schools that offered a neuroscience major to undergraduates were limited, she found a good fit close to home at Agnes Scott College, a small, all-women’s liberal arts college in Decatur, Georgia. Although most liberal arts colleges can’t offer much in terms of research opportunities, Kaela was awarded the NINDS Enhancing Neuroscience Diversity through Undergraduate Research Education Experiences (ENDURE) fellowship. ENDURE, alongside the financial aid available from Agnes Scott, gave Kaela the opportunity to gain research experience at other institutions. During her undergraduate degree, she worked in several labs including one at Georgia State studying crayfish, at Emory studying affective disorders like depression and anxiety, and at Vanderbilt University studying the cellular processes contributing to obesity and inflammation. By her senior year, Kaela was working in three labs at once, two at Emory and one at Agnes.
All these research experiences gave Kaela an impressive skill set in the tricky benchwork used in molecular neuroscience. Of equal importance, Kaela says, “I was having so much fun!” Her enthusiasm for science did not go unnoticed by her undergraduate mentors, one of whom suggested she apply to graduate school. Aside from her love of the scientific process itself, Kaela, like the University of Georgia students who had introduced her to neuroscience, loved teaching and sharing her love of science through mentorship and outreach. Graduate school seemed like the clear-cut next step.
Kaela’s graduate school applications were wildly successful, leaving her to choose among several schools. In the end, she chose Georgetown University’s Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience for her PhD. When looking for a thesis lab, Kaela wanted a lab that would give her a strong foundation of knowledge in neurodevelopment. For Kaela, this ended up being two labs; both specialized in neurodevelopment but used different model organisms. In her thesis research, she investigated how the brain develops from a cross-species perspective, focusing on transcription factors, molecules that alter how DNA is expressed. Most of her research centered on the transcription factor Sox11, a molecule that’s present in many species and organ systems, but whose specific role throughout the stages of neurodevelopment was still ambiguous.
To study Sox11, Kaela worked with the African Clawed Frog Xenopus Laevis and with mice as a mammalian counterpart. Using techniques like co-immunoprecipitation and mass spectrometry, she found that Sox11 plays a context-dependent role throughout development, meaning Sox11's role and location is different depending on the developmental stage of the organism. For instance, early in the development timeline, Sox11 is mostly associated with gross anatomy, or what parts of the embryo’s nervous system go where. Later on, when the organism is more developed, Sox11 is more active in sensory regions (eyes, ears, nose, etc.) where it performs essential cell differentiation functions. Kaela also identified several of the partner proteins that Sox11 links up with to operate on DNA expression and discovered what portions of the Sox11 molecule they bind to.
Towards the end of her PhD, Kaela was feeling burnt out. Exhausted and demoralized by the many demands of grad school, Kaela also faced a lack of support: both of her mentors had become deans and were too overwhelmed themselves to prioritize her success in her PhD. In an effort to regain some of the momentum she had felt she had lost, she decided to apply for an NINDS F99/K00, the Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Grant, which would fund the last two years of her PhD and four years of postdoctoral work. To Kaela’s surprise and delight, she was awarded the fellowship! Her celebrations were abruptly cut short when, during a particularly sour argument, one of her mentors claimed Kaela “only got that grant because it was a diversity grant, and [she] only got that grant because [she] was Black.” People who undermine Black scientists with racial microaggressions, attempting to invalidate their scientific abilities, are far too numerous in academia, and their accumulated effects can be devastating to even the most enthusiastic and brilliant young scientist. In Kaela’s words, “It was hard, and it was embarrassing because I, also, on some subconscious level, was like, what if that was true?”
The memories of experiences with racial bias in grad school stayed with Kaela, so when she was scrolling Twitter in July 2020 and saw a “call to action” tweet from Dr. Angeline Dukes, another Black neuroscientist, she liked it. Her response brought her into a community of 22 early career scientists with the mission to increase the visibility of Black people interested in neuroscience. Kaela and her co-founders started the @BlackinNeuro organization, which aims to support, empower, and build a sense of community for Black neuroscientists to make the choices that are right for them. The organization also offers workshops, panels, and puts on the annual Black in Neuro Week (#BINW22 is happening this year July 25-31, 2022). “It’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever been a part of, and it happened so serendipitously, by responding to a tweet,” says Kaela. Kaela is currently the president-elect of Black in Neuro, set to take over from founder and current president, Dr. Angeline Dukes, in the coming year.
Fortunately, Kaela made it through her PhD. Now as a postdoc at Emory University in Dr. Victor Faundez’s lab, Kaela has found a supportive environment where she has been able to rekindle the love for science that she had almost completely lost at the end of grad school. Her current work involves Menke’s Disease, a disorder affecting children in which there are insufficient amounts of copper in various organs in the body, including the brain. Kaela uses a fruit fly model of Menke’s disease, studying fruit fly cells in vitro to understand the role of copper in neurodevelopment, particularly in mitochondria, a tiny organelle best known for being the “powerhouse of the cell.” However, mitochondria are much more than mere energy production facilities; they can move around the cell and bring vital energy to the axon, where they’re needed to produce enough ATP to generate the action potential. However, in Menke’s Disease, copper deficiency causes mitochondria to be trapped in the soma, unable to move where they’re needed. Kaela has found a way to rescue these mitochondria by counterintuitively tagging them with proteins that tell the cell to destroy them, which surprisingly allows the mitochondria that escape destruction to freely roam the cell. By using this disease model, Kaela has discovered the important role of copper in mitochondrial mobility and has identified a potential intervention to treat the mitochondrial dysfunction seen in Menke’s.
As she looks forward to her next steps in her career, Kaela is still undecided about how well an academic path suits her. The barrage of non-science related demands inherent to a faculty position are overwhelming: grants, people management, committees, etc. Luckily, her postdoc mentor, Victor, is transparent about the reality of being a PI so Kaela can make an informed decision about the next phase of her career. “When I started my career as a neuroscientist,” Kaela says, “I was starting from a place of ‘Can I do this?’” Now that she’s proved herself through her PhD and postdoc, her existential question has shifted: “I can do this, but what do I want to do? What is going to bring me the most joy in terms of my career, in terms of the research that I do?” We know that whatever she chooses, Kaela will continue to do great things and can count Stories of WiN amongst the communities that will wholeheartedly support her.
Find out more about Kaela and her lab’s research here.
Listen to Nancy Padilla’s full interview with Kaela on April 14, 2022 below!
