Memory encodes and stores information that can be retrieved in decision-making, something that thrives in groups of organisms (e.g., ant or bee colonies), and in all processes related to human existence. However, biological memory and how it results in cellular decisions is poorly understood. This knowledge gap is a barrier for exploiting the concept of cellular memory to discover new therapeutic targets. My research program will focus on the memory that is embedded by cells into the extracellular matrix. We will identify glycosylation patterns that cells encode in matrix proteins and how this information is stored and shared in order to direct cell function. Based on these findings, I will then design an extracellular landscape model of spatiotemporal matrix patterns to predict and direct cell fate. This knowledge has the potential to identify a drug that either erases or prevents retrieval of aberrant memory to prevent various disease states from cancer to fibrosis.
Fellow