Swiss-Jamaican Rachel Brewster studies how the neural tube—the precursor to the brain and spinal cord—is shaped during early development. In humans and other higher vertebrates, failures in this process result in congenital defects, including spina bifida. Since the fall of 2000, Brewster has been at the Department of Embryology in Marnie Halpern’s lab, where researchers study the development of the vertebrate nervous system using the zebrafish as a model system. In the fall of 2003, Brewster will be joining the faculty of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC),where she will teach and have her own lab.

Brewster’s goal is to identify genes that control the folding of the neural tissue as it undergoes neurulation—the developmental process shaping the neural tube. The zebrafish is particularly suited for this research because the embryo is entirely clear, allowing the cell movements to be seen during early development.

Along with Halpern postdocs Ararat Ablooglu, Christian Brösamle, and Josh Gamse, Brewster performs genetic screens to find zebrafish mutants defective in nervous system development. She focuses on mutations that specifically cause an arrest of neurulation. Once the mutants are identified, she can backtrack using genetic mapping tools to find the responsible mutant genes. She hopes eventually to reconstruct the normal genetic pathway that controls the neurulation process.

After graduating from the University of Geneva, Brewster came to the U.S. in1990 to study for her Ph.D. in biology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she worked with Dr. Rolf Bodmer. She received her degree in 1996 and joined Dr. Ariel Ruiz I Altaba’s lab at the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine at New York University School of Medicine. Both her graduate and her postdoctoral work focused on how cells of the nervous system acquire a specific identity, or specialized function, as they develop. From Skirball she went to Haverford College, where she taught biology and pursued her research. However, she was interested in doing more intensive research on vertebrate genetics. That, coupled with her long-distance marriage to Mark Van Doren, a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University, made Carnegie particularly attractive.

Earlier this year Brewster was one of 10 postdocs awarded a fellowship by the United Negro College Fund (UNCF)/Merck Science Initiative on the basis of competitive proposals. The proposals were assessed by members of the Merck research staff and educators. The company initiated the program in 1995 by providing $20 million to fund a 10-year initiative. The goal of the program is to help build the pool of African-American scientists in biomedical fields. Brewster, like the other fellows, is paired with a Merck mentor with whom she has regular contact. Her mentor, Thomas Vogt, a developmental biologist who focuses on the genetics of retinal disease, is impressed by Brewster’s accomplishments and her future promise as she begins her independent research and teaching position. He describes her as a “terrific young scientist who will be a role model to the next generation of researchers, especially effective in encouraging and attracting talented young women and minorities currently underrepresented in careers in science and health.”

As Brewster looked to her future beyond Carnegie, she hoped to find a position that would allow her to balance her interest in teaching with her research. She found that opportunity at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Coincidentally, the president of UMBC, Freeman Hrabowski III, is one of Carnegie’s newest trustees. He became the school’s president in 1992 and has changed the university from a commuter school to an international powerhouse in producing minorities who earn their Ph.D.s in engineering and science. UMBC often outcompetes Ivy League schools in attracting the best students. Hrabowski did this through the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program, which now trains about 50 mostly minority students a year to prepare them for careers in science and engineering. Brewster was attracted by the program and the possibility of teaching highly motivated students already interested in careers in science.When she met with Hrabowski during her interview, they talked about the possibility of really making a difference through Meyerhoff. Brewster accepted the position of assistant professor.

Although she’ll be leaving Carnegie, she, like other members of the Halpern lab, will become part of the growing network of zebrafish researchers who are advancing our understanding of what our own genes do. Her future has an added bonus—the opportunity to influence a new generation of professionals to experience for themselves the rigors and rewards of research.