The work from my lab contributed to the understanding of primary cilia, small antennae-like structures present on almost all human cell types, as sensors of diverse cues. Our work has also shown that cancer cells can be ciliated and addicted to their cilia for uncontrolled proliferation. More recently, we have illuminated how the lipid and … Continued
Our overall goal is to understand cell-cell interactions that mediate the establishment of the early body plan of the mammalian embryo.
Our research group tackles the following questions: What is the nature and extent of genetic variation within and between human populations? What are the biological and evolutionary processes that have produced the observed patterns of variation? How do genotypes contribute to phenotypes for complex traits (and how can we identify the relevant genetic variants)? Currently … Continued
I am an evolutionary biologist whose work focuses on adaptation and speciation. I have recently grown especially interested in two topics. The first is the genetics of adaptation in populations that are threatened with extinction. My collaborators and I study this problem (so-called evolutionary rescue) using simple population-genetic models that incorporate sudden changes in the … Continued
Our lab develops novel computational techniques to characterize the dynamics of regulatory circuits at the single cell level, in the context of diverse multi-cellular cohorts within complex tissues, including the tumor microenvironment. Recent work has focused development and cell fate, regeneration and cancer and tumor-immune interactions.
My laboratory seeks to understand how human cells sense hormones, growth factors, and stress and how they integrate and transduce these signals to make decisions to polarize, move, or divide. We investigate these cellular regulatory systems by identifying the key signaling components and measuring when and where signaling occurs as we watch cells decide to … Continued
I view myself as a fundamental cell biologist who is interested in biophysics, chemical biology and drug discovery. My group’s major tools are microscopy and biochemistry, and our work centers on microtubules, a system of dynamic protein filaments that spans the cytoplasm and physically organizes eukaryotic cells. Our group investigates fundamental mechanisms of cell organization, … Continued
In research, our overall goal is to discover general principles, or “rules of the game”, that govern and explain the behavior of cells. We use budding yeast to pursue this goal in four different ways: 1) to experimentally evolve novel traits, such as multicellularity and circadian clocks, 2) to experimentally evolve cells to recover from … Continued
We investigate the molecular mechanisms that govern root growth behavior and responses to mechanical information in their environment, using Arabidopsis thaliana and Brachypodium distachyon as model plant species. Our laboratory uses methodologies that derive from forward, reverse and population genetics, along with systems biology, cell biology, biochemistry and physiology, to better understand the mechanisms that … Continued
We continue to study the axial patterning of the Drosophila oocyte, with the primary emphasis on localization and translational regulation of mRNAs that encode localized patterning determinants. Bruno protein is crucial for this process, and serves to recognize the oskar mRNA and control its activity. Bruno acts as both a repressor and an activator of … Continued