海角社区

Our laboratory studies the聽molecular mechanisms of endocrinology using the model organism Caenorhabditis聽elegans. Hormones and Growth Factors act as signals from one cell to another聽to control various cellular behaviors such as proliferation, differentiation,聽and migration. These signals can activate receptors on the cell surface to聽initiate a cascade of molecular events that transduce the signal to the cell聽interior to elicit a cellular response. The Ras/MAPK pathway can transduce聽signals from a variety of receptors to control numerous cellular responses聽and inappropriate activation of this pathway can lead to cancer. Vesicular聽trafficking plays an important role in endocrine signaling, in both the聽secretion of hormone signals and in the regulation of downstream signaling聽events.聽Our research focuses on understanding the mechanisms that regulate聽vesicular trafficking and signal transduction as well as understanding how聽these two processes intersect. These fundamental cellular processes are聽evolutionarily conserved between humans and the nematode C. elegans.聽Therefore, we can apply the rapid forward and reverse genetic approaches聽available in C. elegans to identify and characterize new regulators relevant聽to the development of therapeutics to treat human cancers and endocrine聽diseases caused by unregulated signaling and/or vesicular trafficking.