Luke Bartelt, Ph.D.

Joined UT Southwestern: 2026

Research: The Bartelt Lab uses single-cell and spatial sequencing technologies to better understand the epigenetic basis of cerebellar neurodegeration, engineer improved gene therapy vectors, and accelerate the development of medical imaging modalities in the cerebellum. By profiling the epigenome at single-cell resolution in healthy and diseased states, we can infer gene regulatory networks responsible for cell type specification and maintenance, and understand how they are breaking down in disease. Using functional genomic assays, we can then isolate DNA regulatory elements and use them to build tools for basic science and gene therapy.

Background: Dr. Bartelt earned his Ph.D. at Duke University in Genetics and Genomics in 2024, working under Dr. Albert La Spada and Dr. Craig Lowe, where he developed a method to isolate Purkinje cell nuclei from the cerebellum. With this method, Luke used single-nucleus RNA-sequencing technologies to discover that a breakdown of the two major subtypes of Purkinje cells (marked by zebrin-II) is a shared mechanism of polyglutamine spinocerebellar ataxias.