Julianna Determan

Program: Developmental Regenerative and Stem Cell Biology

Current advisor: Kristen L. Kroll, PhD

Undergraduate university: Missouri Southern State University, 2021

Enrollment year: 2023

Research summary
Understanding how RFX4 regulates cortical neurogenesis and the consequences of altered neurogenesis in neurodevelopment disorders.

In the Kroll lab, we are broadly interested in epigenetic regulation of human cortical development and understanding how pathogenic mutations in these epigenetic regulators contribute to the etiology of neurodevelopment disorders (NDDs) as mutations in genes encoding chromatin modifiers and transcription factors are significant monogenic contributors of NDDs. One such transcription factor that was newly defined as an autism spectrum disorder risk gene is RFX4. As RFX4 is temporally restricted to progenitor populations in the cortex, I am interested in understanding how RFX4 regulates cortical neurogenesis, the process of proliferated progenitors differentiating into neurons, and how pathogenic mutations perturb this regulation and contribute to the complex etiology of NDDs.

Graduate publications
Prakasam R, Determan J, Chapman G, Narasimhan M, Shen R, Saleh M, Kaushik K, Gontarz P, Meganathan K, Hakim B, Zhang B, Huettner JE, Kroll KL. 2025 Autism- and intellectual disability-associated MYT1L mutation alters human cortical interneuron differentiation, maturation, and physiology. Stem Cell Reports, 20(3):102421. PMCID: PMC11960533

Kaushik K, Chapman G, Prakasam R, Batool F, Saleh M, Determan J, Huettner JE, Kroll K. 2025 Requirements for the neurodevelopmental disorder-associated gene ZNF292 in human cortical interneuron development and function. Cell Rep, 44(5):115597. PMCID:

Chapman G, Determan J, Jetter H, Kaushik K, Prakasam R, Kroll KL. 2024 Defining cis-regulatory elements and transcription factors that control human cortical interneuron development. iScience, 27(6):109967. PMCID: PMC11140214