URAP

David Bilder - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Malignant tumors are distinct from benign growths in their ability to hijack and disrupt various processes in the body. Some common examples that most people are familiar with are tumor invasion of adjacent tissues, recruitment vasculature to accelerate growth, and dissemination of metastasizing cells. However, a less well-appreciated fact...

Laurent Coscoy - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a herpesvirus that infects 60% of adults in developed countries and more than 90% in developing countries. Usually, it is controlled by a vigorous immune response so infections are usually asymptomatic or symptoms are mild. However, if the immune system is compromised (for example in people...

Yang Dan - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Sleep problems are a common symptom of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and in some cases an early warning sign before movement deficits. Sleep problems in PD are diverse and can be made worse by medications that treat other PD symptoms by affecting dopamine or norepinephrine levels in the brain. While dopamine...

Hernan Garcia - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Ultimately, in the developing embryo, cells make decisions individually based on local context. Individual cells don’t have access to the morphogen concentrations across the entire embryo. They can only be affected by the concentration of proteins in neighboring nuclei, and their individual response to signaling is crucial for developmental decision...

Richard Harland - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

The focus of the lab is to understand development; that is, the molecular mechanisms that orchestrate how a single cell (the egg) transforms into an adult animal with a multitude of functioning organs, following a specific body plan. The first milestone in the establishment of the body plan is to...

Richard Harland - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Sleep has been shown to be crucial to animal life. Moreover, sleep deprivation during the development of the fetus leads to emotional and cognitive effects in the offspring later in life. Unfortunately, the mechanism behind these behaviors are not defined due to the technical and ethical impediments related to human...

Richard Harland - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

We will isolate DNAs encoding cytoskeletal regulators, describe their expression, and knock-out or add back functions to determine whether they are active in controlling cell behaviors. Background. Amphibian embryos have been valuable models to examine the behaviors of cells that contribute to the shape changes of the embryo. The...

Richard Harland - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: to be negotiated     Location: On Campus

Though sleep is pervasive across animals, the core function of this deeply conserved behavior remains unknown. Sleep has been hypothesized to serve many roles, from the replenishing of molecules consumed during periods of activity, to the facilitation of learning and the formation of long term memories. Recently, colleagues and I...

Lin He - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Choroid plexus (ChP) epithelia contain multiple cilia per cells. Its major function is to secrete cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) to provide nutrients to the neurons and to cushion the brain from injury and inflammation. Defects in ChP lead to hydrocephalus, an abnormal buildup of fluid in the brain ventricles. Aberrant CSF...

Lin He - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Transposable elements (TEs) are DNA sequences capable of “moving” (transpose) within a genome. RNA transposons (retrotransposon) use RNA intermediate and a “copy and paste” mechanism to transpose. Retrotransposons, with their “copy and paste” mechanism, have accumulated and become abundant in our genome, comprising ~38% of the human and mouse genome...

Lin He - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

In mammals, female fertility is determined by the ovarian reserve of primordial follicles and the quality of mature MII oocytes. In humans, female fertility declines significantly after 35, with a rapid reduction in ovarian reserve and a severe deterioration in oocyte competence. On one hand, the pool of primordial follicles...

Lin He - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Throughout evolution, ancient foreign nucleic acid sequences have infected and spread across the genomes of nearly all organisms. Approximately 40% of the mammalian genome originates from mobile elements known as retrotransposons, which hijack the host's cellular machinery to replicate and integrate into the host genome via RNA intermediates. In most...

Samantha Lewis - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Fatty acid entry into peripheral tissues is known to contribute to the onset of metabolic disorders, such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Mitochondria play a crucial role in the oxidation, synthesis, and storage of fatty acids, and there is evidence to suggest...

Megan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

The huge diversity of animal lifeforms that occupy virtually every ecological niche on our planet are all produced through the transformation of a single-celled zygote to a multicellular, fully functional organism via the processes encompassed by embryogenesis. It is through tweaks and changes to these developmental mechanisms that new...

Megan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

The evolution of vertebrates is intimately linked to the advent of the neural crest, a migratory and multipotent cell population that gives rise to many defining vertebrate characteristics, such as the jaw and peripheral gangilia. Where the neural crest arise along the body axis during developmement has great impacts on...

Megan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

The neural crest (NC) is a transient stem cell population that emerges during early vertebrate embryogenesis. Characterized by its migratory behavior and multipotency, the NC gives rise to diverse cell types and tissue derivatives including elements of the peripheral nervous system, the craniofacial skeleton, and the cardiovascular system. The NC...

Megan Martik - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Neural crest is an embryonic stem cell population that originates in the neural tube and migrates into the developing organs such as the heart and gut to form diverse cell types, including neurons and muscle cells. BMP signaling plays an important role in their terminal differentiation, yet how BMP target...

Craig Miller - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

A fantastic diversity in organismal form is seen in nature, yet we know little about the genetic basis of evolutionary change. We are using the head skeleton of the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) as a model system to study the genetic basis of development and evolution. Sticklebacks have undergone one...

Priya Moorjani - Professor, Center for Computational Biology, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Our lab studies human evolutionary genetics using genomic data from present-day and ancient DNA samples. We aim to understand how different populations relate to each other and what are some of the genes related to human adaptation and diseases. To this end, we develop computational and statistical methods and...

Priya Moorjani - Professor, Center for Computational Biology, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Unraveling the first migrations of humans out of Africa has invoked great interest among researchers from a wide range of disciplines. With the advent of genome-wide DNA sequencing techniques and an increase in the availability of ancient samples, genetics offers important tools for testing different hypothesis related to human...

Eva Nogales - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Faithful development and maintenance of cell identity requires that the expression of specific genes is turned on and off in a highly regulated manner. This epigenetic regulation requires that chromatin-modifying complexes can be dynamically recruited across the genome and activated with high spatial and temporal control. Many of these...

Eva Nogales - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

The large transcription coactivators TFIID and SAGA play important roles in the regulation of gene expression. Over a megadalton in size, each of these complexes contains a number of structural modules with distinct functionalities. Interestingly, they share one particular module that plays different roles and that contains a number of...

Eva Nogales - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

DNA methylation at CpG sites plays an essential role in maintaining genome stability and regulating gene expression and it is strictly monitored and controlled by a series of molecular machines. Defects in DNA methylation are frequently found in severe diseases, such as cancer and Alzheimer's. DNMT1(DNA methyltransferase 1) with...

Eva Nogales - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Accurate segregation of chromosomes during cell division is essential for maintaining proper cellular function and organismal health. Errors in chromosome segregation can result in apoptosis or an abnormal chromosome number, leading to conditions such as Down syndrome and Turner syndrome, exposing detrimental recessive mutations, and being associated with cancer. The...

Ian Swinburne - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Day-to-day health of the eye relies on the accumulation of the eye’s internal fluid being balanced by release of excess fluid or pressure. The fluid’s flow and pressure help keep the eye’s tissues healthy and the correct size and shape. Glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness, is usually...

Ian Swinburne - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 9-11 hrs     Location: On Campus

Cells integrate extracellular cues (biochemical or mechanical signals) in order to direct specific cellular and tissue wide responses. The correct functioning of organs depends on this communication between cells and their surrounding environment. However, our understanding of how external mechanical inputs, such as increased pressure, direct cell function in health...

Ian Swinburne - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Auditory and vestibular senses are classic and essential senses of the body. The inner ear’s development, or morphogenesis, is a complex and well-regulated process that is guided by cell communication or signaling pathways. When signaling pathways become dysregulated, it often leads to deformities and/or diseases. And in the...

Ian Swinburne - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Most life processes involve cells managing fluids. Our sense of hearing and balance depend on the tight regulation of inner ear fluid (endolymph) volume and pressure. Increased endolymph volume and pressure can lead to the development of deafness and balance disorders. Our previous work in zebrafish embryos has shown that...

Robert Tjian - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Regulation of DNA transcription is one of the mechanisms at the core of cellular identity establishment and maintenance. Our lab is interested in studying the proteins that operate such regulation, transcription factors (TFs). Uncovering TFs DNA binding specificity is key to understand how certain TFs switch on (or off) some...

Robert Tjian - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Full- no new appr needed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

In live cells, biomolecules are in constant motion, driven by a range of specific and nonspecific interactions. These dynamic behaviors are key to understanding the in vivo properties and functional mechanisms of biomolecules. Single-molecule microscopes, which enable the tracking of individual target molecules, have opened new frontiers in this...

Robert Tjian - Professor, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Regulation of DNA transcription is one of the mechanisms at the core of cellular identity establishment and maintenance. Our lab is interested in studying the nuclear dynamics of the proteins that operate such regulation, transcription factors (TFs). To this aim we typically fuse a TF of interest with either Halo...

Marta Truchado- Garcia - Project Scientist, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 12 or more hours     Location: On Campus

Despite dramatically different body architectures, animals share common signaling pathways and transcriptional networks that regulate their development, a core “genetic toolkit.” Asymmetries are essential for proper organization and function of organ systems, and we aim to examine the toolkit that underlies left-right asymmetry (LRA) in different animal groups. Genetic...

Marta Truchado- Garcia - Project Scientist, Molecular and Cell Biology

Status: Current Term Now Closed     Weekly Hours: 6-8 hrs     Location: On Campus

Ctenophores (from Greek, meaning "comb-bearing") are gelatinous marine invertebrates that might be mistaken for medusae. However, they can be easily identified by their eight longitudinal 'comb rows' of ciliary bundles, which are used for locomotion. Like cnidarians, ctenophores possess multiple nerve nets; however, they exhibit several unique features that...