James Jaggard, Ph.D.

James Jaggard is a research scientist in the lab of Philippe Mourrain at Stanford University. His interest in biology began during his undergraduate at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he studied neuroscience and music. He then went on to obtain his doctorate in integrative biology from Florida Atlantic University, in the lab of Alex Keene. There, Jaggard revealed genetic mechanisms by which Astyanax mexicanus have evolved loss of sleep through altered sensory integration and enhanced hypocretin signaling. While pursuing this line of research, he developed novel genetic and computational approaches for longitudinal whole brain imaging across wake and sleep states.

As a postdoctoral fellow in the Stanford-UPenn multi-institutional sleep genetics program, Jaggard became interested in how to apply these imaging approaches across lifespan in vertebrate animals to understand the relationship between sleep loss and aging. To achieve this, he has been developing Danionella cerebrum as a new model system for aging studies. During his postdoctoral studies, he has been investigating how neurosteroids impact social status, sleep states and cognition. Additionally, he has been determining the mechanisms through which ependymal glial cells sense systemic factors to regulate sleep. His research combines behavioral, imaging-based, genetic and lipidomic approaches that aim to understand the function of sleep across lifespan.