Research
Cellular pH Homeostasis
Our lab focuses on understanding how changes in the balance of pH (acidity and alkalinity) within cells impact their function and survival, and how these changes can influence aging and age-associated diseases. We predominantly leverage Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast) as a model eukaryotic organism, and yeast have been used to uncover many fundamental aspects of molecular and cellular biology (e.g., cell cycle, transcription, telomerase, vesicular trafficking, autophagy).
Innovative Teaching Lab Design
We also create innovative laboratory course curricula that immerse the next generation of researchers in real scientific discovery, encouraging them to develop and investigate scientific questions with unknown answers.
Homeostasis and Aging
Astonishingly, there are evolutionarily conserved pathways that be manipulated to increase lifespan, from yeast to mammals. By studying aging in model organisms such as yeast, we seek to learn about the fundamental molecular mechanisms that contribute to how cells change with age, in order to support longer-term research that will identify therapeutic targets to treat age-associated diseases.
We are also developing yeast-based systems to identify novel compounds that can influence molecular pathways associated with aging.
Rare Diseases
Most research funding is allocated to studying common diseases. Our lab works to model suspected human rare disease-causing mutations in the simple eukaryotic model organism, yeast. This allows for a cost-effective system to with powerful genetic tools and biological screening mechanisms that allow for unbiased and rapid discovery. Yeast share many biological processes with humans, making it easier to study genetic mutations. When a clinical mutation suspected of causing a rare disease is evolutionarily conserved, we use CRISPR to alter the yeast genome to model the mutation, and then perform targeted assays to uncover fundamental biological knowledge about the understudied disease. Some areas of current ongoing research include the study of mutations in mTOR (a key regulator of cell growth and metabolism), distal tubular renal acidosis (the V-ATPase), and porphyria (caused by mutations in heme biosynthesis).
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