PhD
Assistant Professor, Biology
UNC-Chapel Hill
Cancer Cell Biology
Area of Interest
The regulation of stem cell proliferation vs. differentiation lies at the heart of processes such as fetal development, tissue engineering, aging, and senescence. Organisms maintain germ line stem cells and their differentiated descendants to form gametes. Stem cell niches regulate stem cells.
I study the cellular structure and regulatory functions of the germ line stem cell niche, stem cells, and their differentiating progeny in Caenorhabditis elegans. Like many stem cells, these progenitors balance self-renewal with the release of maturing daughter cells to form differentiated cell types (eggs and sperm). I ask how support cells regulate the balance between stem-like and differentiating cell fates. This phenomenon is central to stem cell biology, as it allows stem cells to maintain their numbers even as they replenish and repair tissues, and, in the case of germ stem cells, to make gametes that give rise to the next generation.
C. elegans is an ideal model, as its distal tip cell (DTC) was one of the first cells described with niche-like properties. Many features that are shared among diverse stem cell niches have been modeled in the C. elegans gonad and genetic and cell biological tools for defining underlying mechanisms in this system are exceptional.
As a cell biologist with experience conducting high spatial- and temporal-resolution studies of this stem cell niche, I have the experience necessary to use a longstanding model system in new, promising ways.
