Dylan Mercado

Dylan joined the Broad Summer Scholars Program eager to explore how tiny changes in DNA can ripple outward to affect brain function and health. At the Stanley Center, he worked on understanding the functional effects of missense mutations in the CACNA1A gene, which encodes the CaV2.1 calcium channel — a protein critical for controlling neurotransmitter release in the brain. Variants in CACNA1A have been linked to a spectrum of neurological disorders, including epilepsy, episodic ataxia, and familial hemiplegic migraine.