cell competition in the Drosophila wing primordium

Overall Goal: Creating and maintaining a complex body plan involves cooperation and coordination between cells. Sometimes, however, cells don’t cooperate, but instead compete and actually kill one another. What are the mechanisms and meaning of such cell competition? Does it represent counterproductive, selfish cell behavior, or is it somehow productive, contributing to the fitness of the organism? Does cell competition occur in disease, and can it be exploited to regenerate tissues? Our group seeks to apply multiple genetic and molecular approaches to answer these questions and their relevance to the early development of cancer

Key Research Areas

Molecular mechanisms of Cell Competition

Cell competition depends on a transcriptional stress response

Cell Competition, Aneuploidy, and Tumor Suppression

Changes in chromosome number usually change the copy number of one or more Rp genes. Because this is a common effect of aneuploidy, mutating Rp genes partially mimic aneuploidy, and aneuploidy can trigger cell competition

A Ribosomal Route to Cancer?

Aneuploidy contributes to cancer and aging. to cancer. Rp gene mutations are very frequent in human cancer, suggesting they contribute to it

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