Meningiomas arising from the meningothelial lining of the central nervous system are the most common primary intracranial tumors, and a significant cause of neurologic morbidity and mortality. There are no effective medical therapies for meningioma patients, and new treatments have been encumbered by limited understanding of meningioma biology. DNA...
Cell plasticity refers to the ability of cells can convert their phenotypic identity, without genetic mutation, in response to environmental stimuli. In the mouse liver, hepatocytes and cholangiocytes have been shown to act as each other’s facultative stem cell in cases of severe liver injury where one cellular compartment is unable to regenerate i...
The vertebrate retina – a thin layer of photosensitive tissue that forms from a protrusion of the early brain during development – is a highly conserved structure essential for functioning sight. Although there are modest variations from species to species, across taxa the overall structure is largely the same: photoreceptor cells at the back of th...
Forecasting how biodiversity will change in the future due to natural and anthropogenic impacts is a primary focus of both ecology and evolutionary biology. By understanding the historical processes influencing the current geographic distribution of biodiversity, we can determine the relative importance of different factors shaping biodiversity, no...
Synthetic biology in Saccharomyces cerevisiae or budding yeast has proved indispensable in metabolic engineering, gene circuit engineering, and molecular and cell biology. These applications require robust “plug-and-play” inducible promoter systems for tight and tunable control of gene expression, but current inducible systems have limitations. We ...
In plants, the precise regulation of cell survival or cell death decisions control effective immunity to different types of pathogens. Cellular damage in plants results in the enzymatic and non-enzymatic peroxidation of fatty acids known as oxylipins. Enzymatic oxylipin biosynthesis often begins with the lipase-based cleavage of linoleic (18:2) or ...
In the field of insect chemosensation, knowledge of basic principles has come from the model organism, Drosophila melanogaster. However, the different life histories of Culicids result in behaviors that are unique to mosquitoes. In hematophagous species, these behaviors facilitate the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases that pose grave threats ...
Examples of metazoan regeneration can be seen within all animal phyla; however, the ability to restore lost tissues upon injury varies greatly. Some species can only partially replace tissues and organs, while others can repeatedly regenerate entire limbs, severed spinal cords, and portions of their brain. There are also extraordinary cases of whol...
The ability of a cell to accurate interpret its environment and communicate cues within itself is crucial to survival. How cells orchestrate the transmission of large amounts of information within themselves is a key biological question. From surface-level receptors binding to myriads of extracellular molecules to internal changes in gene expressio...
Parasitism is one the most common lifestyles on earth. Parasites are important components of virtually all ecological communities and parasite research can help to elucidate many aspects of the ecology of their hosts. This dissertation focused on studying the metazoan parasites of the California grunion, Leuresthes tenuis and other fish hosts in th...
