Evan Bordt, Ph.D

Instructor, Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School

Instructor in Investigation at the Lurie Center for Autism, Massachusetts General Hospital for Children

Research Staff, Pediatrics

Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr Evan Bordt received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in the lab of Dr. Brian Polster. He then performed his postdoctoral studies in Dr. Staci Bilbo’s lab at Massachusetts General Hospital. The Bordt lab opened in the fall of 2021 in the Lurie Center for Autism at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

In October 2021 Dr Bordt transitioned to independence and assumed PI status of his own research lab as an Instructor at the Lurie Center for Autism at Massachusetts General Hospital where the overall objective of his research program is to define the role of sex differences in mitochondrial and microglial function and how they impact sex-biased neurodevelopmental disorders. As a graduate student, he assessed mitochondrial bioenergetics and morphological changes in a variety of brain cell types and tissues in response to pharmacological treatments and exposures to differing oxygen concentrations (Bordt et al. 2017, Dev Cell; Jaber, Bordt et al 2018 Neurochem Int).

As a postdoctoral fellow, he began to investigate the role of sex differences in the development of mitochondrial and microglial function, and how these may translate perinatal immune perturbations into neurodevelopmental outcomes. He received an F32 NRSA Fellowship (NIMH) to explore these relationships and gained extensive experience in mouse social behavior and assessment of neuroimmune interactions and neuroinflammatory alterations. The resulting data are deposited in BioRxiv and have been submitted for peer review.

He has investigated maternal, fetal, and placental immune responses in the context of maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection, and defined fetal sex-specific immune alterations in response to maternal viral infection (Bordt et al 2021, Sci Transl Med ; Grey, Bordt, Atyeo et al 2021 AM J Obstet Gynecol ; Atyeo et al 2020 Cell ; Shook, Bordt et al 2021 J Infect Dis). He has investigated mitochondrial functional and morphological alterations in human postmortem tissues (Petrozziello, Bordt* et al 2022 Mol Neurobiol) and optimized microglial isolation protocols of both mouse and human brain tissues (Bordt et al 2020 STAR Protoc).

Follow Dr Bordt on Twitter @evanbordt

Publications

Major Research Interests: how sex differences in perinatal life influence behavior, neurodevelopment, microglia, & mitochondria, COVID-19, Autism

Bordt EA, Ceasrine A, Bilbo SD. (2020) Microglia and sexual differentiation of the developing brain: a focus on ontogeny and intrinsic factors. Glia, 68(6):1085-1099. PMCID: PMC7148120

Bordt EA, Shook LL, Atyeo C, Pullen KM, De Guzman RM, Meinsohn MC, Chauvin M, Fischinger S, Yockey LJ, James K, Lima R, Yonker LM, Fasano A, Brigida S, Bebell LM, Roberts DJ, Pépin D, Huh JR, Bilbo SD, Li JZ, Kaimal A, Schust DJ, Gray KJ, Lauffenburger D, Alter G, Edlow AG. Maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection elicits sexually dimorphic placental immune responses. .Sci Transl Med. 2021 Oct 27;13(617):eabi7428. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abi7428. Epub 2021 Oct 27. PMID: 34664987

Bordt EA, Clerc P, Roelofs BA, Saladino AJ, Tretter L, Adam-Vizi V, Cherok E, Khalil A, Yadava N, Ge SX, Francis TC, Kennedy NW, Picton LK, Kumar T, Uppuluri S, Miller AM, Itoh K, Karbowski M, Sesaki H, Hill RB, Poslter BM. (2017) The Putative Drp1 Inhibitor mdivi-1 is a Reversible Mitochondrial Complex I Inhibitor that Modulates Reactive Oxygen Species. Dev Cell, 40(6):583-594. PMCID:PMC5398851

Bordt EA, Moya HA, Jo YC, Ravichandran CT, Bankowski IM, Ceasrine AM, McDougle CJ, Carlezon WA, Bilbo SD. (2022). Gonadal Hormones Impart Male-Biased Behavioral Vulnerabilities to Immune Activation via Microglial Mitochondrial Function. BioRxiv.

Bordt EA, Ceasrine AM, Bilbo SD.Glia. Microglia and sexual differentiation of the developing brain: A focus on ontogeny and intrinsic factors. 2020 Jun;68(6):1085-1099. doi: 10.1002/glia.23753. Epub 2019 Nov 19. PMID: 31743527

Shook LL, Bordt EA, Meinsohn MC, Pepin D, De Guzman RM, Brigida S, Yockey LJ, James KE, Sullivan MW, Bebell LM, Roberts DJ, Kaimal AJ, Li JZ, Schust D, Gray KJ, Edlow AG. Placental Expression of ACE2 and TMPRSS2 in Maternal Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection: Are Placental Defenses Mediated by Fetal Sex? J Infect Dis. 2021 Dec 8;224(Suppl 6):S647-S659. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiab335.
PMID: 34293137

Smith CJ, Kingsbury MA, Dziabis JE, Hanamsagar R, Malacon KE, Tran JN, Norris HA, Gulino M, Bordt EA, Bilbo SD.Neonatal immune challenge induces female-specific changes in social behavior and somatostatin cell number. Brain Behav Immun. 2020 Nov;90:332-345. doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2020.08.013. Epub 2020 Aug 26. PMID: 32860938