Area(s) of Specialization: Developmental and cell biology; cell migration; tissue morphogenesis.
Some of our current interests:
- How do cell collectives maintain their overall shape and ability to move within the confined environment of developing tissues?
- How do single cells come together as collectives and communicate to produce coordinated group movement? And how do cells in collectives stay together while migrating?
- How do cells break away from epithelia to become migratory?
- What are the molecular pathways that help migrating cell collectives keep moving?
- Application of Drosophila border cell model to tumor migration and invasion, especially glioblastoma
Research Interests: Collective cell migration, cell polarity, cell adhesion, kinases and phosphatases in cell migration, non-muscle myosin II, tissue morphogenesis, mechanobiology, tumor invasion and metastasis
Ongoing interests in the lab include: how groups of cells break away from epithelia to become migratory; how individual cells adhere together and become coordinated to produce group movement; and interplay of cell polarity and cytoskeletal regulatory proteins in collective migration.
Research
- How do cell collectives maintain their shape while moving within confined tissues?
- How do cells stay together and communicate while migrating as collectives?
- How do cells break away from epithelia to become migratory?
- Interplay of polarity and cytoskeletal regulatory proteins in migration
- Application of Drosophila border cell model to tumor invasion
Keywords:
- Cell migration in development and disease
We are interested in how cells migrate during development, e.g. during organ formation and tissue remodeling, and in diseases such as cancer, where it contributes to tumor invasion and metastasis.
The overall interest of my laboratory is to understand how cell migration is regulated within the normal three-dimensional environment of tissues. We are particularly interested in a type of migration called "collective" migration, in which small to large groups of cells coordinate and move together.
Research: Biology – Studies how cells move and invade tissues in cancer
Subject areas: Genetics, Developmental and Cell Biology
Expertise: Studies the genetic control of cell migration in development and cancer, primarily using the model organism Drosophila melanogaster.
