Genetics, Development and Disease Faculty
Program Chair
Faculty
Professor
Research Interests: Molecular genetics of cell death; genomic “dark matter”; p53 tumor suppressor function; 3D genome organization

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Hematopoietic stem cell and leukemia metabolism; metabolites and the stem cell genome

Professor
Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms of normal genitourinary development and congenital birth defects

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Chromatin biology, developmental gene regulation, histone variants, stem cells

Professor
Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms of cell growth proliferation control

Professor
Research Interests: Molecular control of inflammatory responses in the intestine, inflammation and cancer progression, regulation of NF-kB activity, COMM.D. proteins

Professor
Research Interests: Stem cell biology; niche signaling; chromatin; translational repression

Professor
Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms regulating kidney tubule formation and maintenance

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Genetics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD); molecular mechanisms underlying ASD; the ubiquitin proteasome pathway in neurodevelopmental disorders

Professor
Research Interests: Cell-cell fusion, actin cytosleletal dynamics, mechanobiology, muscle development and regeneration

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Spatial and functional genomics and epigenomics, single-cell genomics and epigenomics, computational genomics, high resolution imaging, mammalian spermatogenesis, human fertility and reproduction

Professor
Research Interests: NF-B signaling and the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway

Professor
Research Interests: Genetics of quantitative traits; genetic determinants of plasma lipoprotein levels

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Schistosomes are parasitic flatworms that cause significant disease and disability in more than 200 million of the world’s poorest people. Using a variety of functional genomic approaches, we seek to understand fundamental aspects of schistosome biology, including the biology of somatic and reproductive stem cells.

Professor
Research Interests: Regulation of metabolism during cell growth and tumorigenesis; integrating signal transduction with metabolic flux; understanding pediatric metabolic diseases

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Calcium channels and calcium signalling in the nervous system;he development of the lymphatic vasculature and human diseases caused by errors in the development of the lymphatic vasculature

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Molecular genetics of aging and stress response in blunt trauma, degenerative disease and cancer

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms of pediatric sarcoma tumorigenesis and developmental skeletal muscle patterning

Assocoate Professor
Research Interests: AAV, gene therapy, neurodevelopmental disease, neurodegenerative disease, genetic disease, translational research

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Epigenomics, chromatin, SCNT, embryonic genome activation, preimplantation development, embryonic stem cells, pluripotency, transposons, endogenous retroviruses, ovarian follicle development, oogenesis, single-cell techniques

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Transcriptional control of fat cell development and adipose tissue expansion in obesity; manipulating the adipose lineage as a therapeutic treatment for metabolic disease

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Host-pathogen interactions, genetic conflicts, positive selection, genome evolution, innate immunity, evolutionary immunology, horizontal gene transfer, poxviruses, mutation, genetic disease, genomics

Professor
Research Interests: Identification of genetic factors contributing to inter-individual differences in the concentration of lipoproteins in the blood

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Developing (epi)genomic/bioinformatic tools to assess and predict the functions of regulatory elements, epigenetic biomarkers of disease state, epigenetics in development and disease, global regulation of mammalian gene expression, non-coding genome function

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Cancer biology, CRISPR genome editing, mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR), nutrient sensing, signal transduction

Professor
Research Interests: Signal-transduction pathways in development and human disease; genetic control of organ growth and patterning; tumor suppressor genes

Professor
Research Interests: Development of the mammalian nervous system; transcriptional regulation of neural cell-type specification

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Amino acids, glutamine, proline, osteoblast, osteoclast, bone, WNT, metabolism

Professor
Research Interests: Molecular genetics endosomal trafficking in Drosophila

Professor
Research Interests: Cellular signaling, gene regulation, and epigenetic control in the chromatin environment of the nucleus; biological systems include: reproduction, cancer, inflammation, adipogenesis, stem cells, differentiation

Professor
Research Interests: Tumor cell of origin; roles of tumor microenvironment in cancer development; cellular and molecular mechanisms of neurofibromatosis; stem cell and cancer biology

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Cell fate, wound healing, muscle fibrosis, heterotopic ossification, injury response

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Pancreatic Cancer, Genetics in Cancer, Basic and Translational Science, Single Cell Technologies, Advanced Mouse Modeling, Cellular Bionetwork

Professor
Research Interests: Synonymous codons as new genetic codes to regulate protein structure and gene expression, mechanism of circadian clocks, small and long coding RNAs

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Elucidate transcriptional regulatory mechanisms of genes involved in cardiovascular diseases and characterize the signaling pathways coupling these transcriptional programs to extracellular signals that trigger this disease

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Mechanisms of genomic instability and chromosomal alterations in cancer

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Tumor metastasis, tumor heterogeneity, therapy resistance, circulation tumor cells, and cellular plasticity

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Epigenetic mechanisms underlying cancer progression; ETS gene fusions in prostate cancer; genomic rearrangements in cancer; transcriptional regulation in prostate cancer

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Regulation of cell-cell adhesion during tubule and glomerular formation and in polycystic kidney disease

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Nitrogen metabolism, crosstalk between the metabolome and epigenome, metabolic mechanisms of tumor initiation, synthetic lethality, glioma biology, CRISPR/Cas9-based mouse models of cancer

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Genetically engineered mouse models of cancer, chemical and genetic screens for new vulnerabilities in small cell lung cancer and Ewing sarcoma

Professor
Research Interests: Regulation and function of mammalian miRNAs and other noncoding RNAs in normal physiology and disease

Professor
Research Interests: Understanding the molecular basis of glycogen malformation in the fatal Lafora epilepsy and devising gene and small-molecule based therapies for this and other childhood neurogenetic disorders.

Professor
Research Interests: Molecular basis of pathogenesis of antiphospholipid syndrome; role of Pentraxin C Reactive protein in metabolic syndrome; biology of lipoproteins and their receptors

Professor
Research Interests: Genetic disorders of the cornea and eye; Age-related degenerative trinucleotide repeat disease of the cornea

Professor
Research Interests: Cancer stem cell biology; melanoma cell proliferation and metastasis; stem cell aging; stem cell self-renewal

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Molecular mechanism of therapy resistance in prostate cancer, combined therapy development, novel biomarker identification, non-coding RNAs’ function in prostate cancer

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Role of the primary cilia in normal development and cancer; functional proteomics in ciliary diseases; ciliary signaling pathways

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Transcriptional mechanisms that orchestrate formation and function of the cardiac conduction system

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Mechanisms of tumorigenesis; Regulation and function of cell surface receptors in lung cancer pathogenesis

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Stem cells, intestine, developmental biology, gastrointestinal physiology, gastrointestinal cancer

Professor
Research Interests: Transcriptional control of cell differentiation; muscle development

Professor
Research Interests: Size-control mechanisms in development, regeneration, and cancer

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Gene regulation, nuclear organization by biomolecular condensates, phase separation, gene activation in development and cancer

Professor
Research Interests: Metabolic profiling of stem cells

Professor
Research Interests: Endothelial cell biology, vascular development and disease; signaling molecules in endothelial cell caveolae/lipid rafts

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Cellular metabolism, mitochondria, reproduction, cellular quiescence

Professor
Research Interests: Tumor suppressor gene function; angiogenesis; skeletal muscle differentiation; oncogene-induced senescence

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Benign and malignant urologic diseases, computational and translational biology, cellular anatomy, single cell technology

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Epigenetics, neurological disorders, genome engineering, single-cell genomics

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Neuron-glia interaction, oligodendrocyte, myelination, neurological disorders

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Kinases in the secretory pathway and the extracellular space; secreted protein and peptide hormone phosphorylation; CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: PARP-1 signaling, DNA damage, and cell death in neurologic diseases and human cancer

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Proteolytic mechanisms in cell fate, signaling and gene expression. Roles of caspases, E3 ubiquitin ligases and MAPK signaling in development and stress responses.

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Inherited retinal degenerations, stem cell biology, gene editing, gene therapy, mouse models of ocular disease, metabolism and metabolic reprogramming, photoreceptor cells, genetic mechanisms of disease

Associate Professor
Research Interests: G-protein signaling during mouse development, energy homeostasis, and feeding behavior

Professor
Research Interests: Genetics of pediatric musculoskeletal and autoinflammatory diseases

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Chromatin regulation of neural development; neural stem cell differentiation; activity dependent gene expression

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Stem cells and pluripotency, genome and epigenome editing, interspecies chimera and organogenesis, species preservation

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Extrachromosomal DNA in cancer; Cancer genomics; Cancer epigenetics

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Statistical genetics, genetic epidemiology, bioinformatics, gene mapping for complex traits

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Epigenetic and genetic basis of disease-associated genes and gene networks in blood stem cell development and disorders, focusing on both single gene and genomic levels

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Cell biology of protein liquid-liquid phase separation, molecular mechanisms of age-related neurodegeneration, protein quality control pathways, and the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway

Professor
Research Interests: Nuclear receptor signaling and adult neural stem cells

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Regulation and function of oxygen sensing pathway in diseases including cancer; post-translational modifications of proteins; tumor suppressor signaling and synthetic lethality

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms of major metabolic diseases including obesity, diabetes, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Computational Biology; Systems biology and functional Genomics; Machine learning and statistics for biomedical science; Genomic sequence-based regulation

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Genetic and cellular mechanisms of organ regeneration and dysregulation of these mechanisms in liver cancer

Professor
Research Interests: Obesity, diabetes, gut-brain axis, islet, hypoglycemia, exercise, ghrelin, cachexia, insulin

Associate Members
These faculty members do not accept graduate students. They participate in teaching, co-mentoring, exam and dissertation committees, and all other program responsibilities.
Professor
Research Interests: Genetic mechanisms of muscle development, growth, disease, and regeneration

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Pathology; comparative histopathology; neuropathology; developmental biology; ophthalmic pathology

Professor
Research Interests: Transforming growth factor beta signaling

Associate Professor
Research Interests: Role of progenitor cells in skeletal muscle function during homeostasis and aging

Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Molecular control of germ-cell development and meiosis

Professor
Research Interests: Wnt signaling; cardiovascular calcification; transgenic preclinical disease models; protein arginine methylation; transcriptional regulation; fibrosis; vascular smooth muscle phenotypic modulation; osteogenic differentiation.

Professor
Research Interests: Genetic disorders of human growth and reproduction; Turner syndrome; infertility; obesity
