Patricia Wight

Patricia Wight, Ph.D., serves as a Professor in the Department of Physiology and Cell Biology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) College of Medicine, where her research focuses on central nervous system (CNS) development and myelin biology.

She earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside, establishing her expertise in molecular neuroscience and genetic regulation.

Dr. Wight's laboratory investigates the myelin proteolipid protein gene (PLP1), the most abundant protein in CNS myelin, with emphasis on its spatiotemporal regulation in oligodendrocytes. Her work demonstrates that PLP1 intron 1 contains a critical enhancer region whose misregulation causes neurological disorders including Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD) and spastic paraplegia type 2 (SPG2). Current projects involve identifying transcription factors mediating enhancer function, testing enhancer mutations as disease mechanisms in patients with normal PLP1 coding sequences, and characterizing human-specific PLP1 splice variants. Her lab additionally utilizes PLP1-lacZ transgenic mice for remyelination therapy screening in multiple sclerosis and investigates spontaneous mesenchymal phenotypes in mouse colonies.

Her research integrates molecular genetics, transgenic modeling, and translational approaches to bridge fundamental myelin biology with therapeutic applications for demyelinating diseases.