General Research Interest
Molecular mechanisms of human diseases, Stress responses and inflammation in disease context, Breast cancer, melanoma, and diabetesResearch Description
Maladaptation of cells to various signals plays important roles in the pathogenesis of many diseases. The current focus of my laboratory is to study the maladaptive processes in the development of breast cancer, melanoma, and diabetes. In all three cases, inflammatory signals exacerbate the diseases. We are investigating how inflammatory signals in conjunction with other stress signals affect various cellular machineries that regulate signal transduction, gene expression, apoptosis, cell migration, angiogenesis, metastasis, and cell-cell interactions. The approach we take is to focus on a stress-inducible gene ATF3, which encodes a member of the ATF/CREB transcription factors and functions as a “hub” of the cellular adaptive-response networks. Our strategy is to use ATF3 — as a handle — to probe the stress responses and gain insights to the roles of cellular adaptations to stress signals in the development of above diseases. For more information, see http://cmn.osu.edu/1493.cfm. Transinstitutional Work
We are collaborating with various investigators both at the Ohio State University (OSU) and outside of OSU. Current collaborations include: At OSU - Drs. Sudha Agarwal, William Carson, Sissy Jhiang, Marino Leon, Michael Ostrowski, Charles Shapiro for cancer research and Drs. Jianjun Guan, Gregg Hadley, Douglas McCarty, Amer Rajab for islet transplantation and gene targeting using adeno-associated viruses. Outside of OSU - Drs. Marc Montminy at the Salk Institute, Mirmira Raghu at University of Indiana, Ling Qi at Cornell University, Decio Eizirik and Miriam Cnopp at Universite Libre de Bruxelles for islet biology and diabetes