Draft:Troy Littleton

J. Troy Littleton (born March 19, 1967) is an American neuroscientist and Menicon Professor of Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the Departments of Biology and Brain and Cognitive Sciences. He is also the co-director of MIT's Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience Graduate Program.

Littleton is affiliated with The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT. He is known for his research on synaptic function and its role in neurological disorders, utilizing the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model organism.

Education and early career
Littleton obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry from Louisiana State University in 1989, graduating magna cum laude.

He then pursued combined M.D. and Ph.D. degrees in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) at Baylor College of Medicine. His doctoral research, conducted under the mentorship of Hugo Bellen, focused on characterizing synaptic vesicle exocytosis using the Drosophila model.

After completing his M.D./Ph.D. studies in 1997, Littleton conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Wisconsin in Madison with Barry Ganetzky, a pioneer in Drosophila neurogenetics.

Career
In 2000, Littleton joined the faculty at MIT as an Assistant Professor in the Biology Department and the Center for Learning & Memory. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2004 and to Professor in 2011.

Littleton has made contributions to understanding the mechanisms underlying synaptic connectivity and plasticity. His research has implications for various neurological disorders, including epilepsy, Huntington's disease, and autism.