Developmental Biology
Contact Information
Faculty and their Research Interests
Different stickleback fish have evolved dramatic differences in body form and pattern. Using genetics and developmental studies, it is now possible to identify the specific genes and mutations that produce major evolutionary evolutionary changes in these and other species.
Research programs in the Department of Developmental Biology explore many aspects of developmental and cell biology, cell communication, gene regulatory networks, and the genomic basis of evolution, with the general goals of understanding how cells work together to build organisms and how the structure of organisms is controlled by the genome. Areas of interest include mysteries of embryonic growth, stem cells, signaling, gene regulation, organogenesis, evolution and the origin of new species, microbial genetic circuitry, and development as it relates to health and disease. The field of developmental biology is fundamentally integrative. In trying to understand how cells coordinate their activities to form a working organism we employ genetics, genomics, imaging, biochemistry, transgenesis, injection, optical tweezers, clinical studies, and especially that most powerful approach of all: discussion.
For more information contact:
Mimi Qian
Department of
Developmental Biology
Beckman Center, B300
Stanford, CA 94305-5329
(650) 725-7662
(650) 725-7739 (fax)
mqian@stanford.edu
http://devbio.stanford.edu/
Also visit the Stanford Developmental Biology home page at http://devbio.stanford.edu/. This provides information about all developmental biology at Stanford, including the many laboratories with related interests in other departments.
Faculty and their Research Interests
Ben Barres. Neural development mechanisms. Control and function of glial cells. Signal transduction mechanisms.
Phil Beachy. My lab studies the function of Hedgehog proteins and other extracellular signals in morphogenesis (pattern formation) and in injury repair and regeneration (pattern maintenance). We study how the distribution of such signals is regulated in tissues, how cells perceive and respond to distinct concentrations of signals, and how such signaling pathways arose in evolution. We also study the normal roles of such signals in stem-cell physiology and their abnormal roles in the formation and expansion of cancer stem cells.
Gill Bejerano. Our lab seeks to understand the human genome through vertebrate comparative, functional, and paleo-genomics, including such topics as the functional landscape of the human genome and its evolution, with particular focus on vertebrate gene regulation and its contributions to morphological diversity, development, and human disease; functions, origins, and evolution of proximal and distal cis-acting regulatory elements; the paradoxical existence of ultraconserved elements; co-option of mobile DNA elements (repeats) as a driving force in vertebrate evolution; and the interpretation of ancestral genomes.
http://bejerano.stanford.edu
Gerald Crabtree. Epigenetic regulation and nuclear remodeling in development. Calcineurin/NFAT signaling in vertebrate development. New techniques to allow the rapid and reversible inactivation or activation of genes with small synthetic ligands.
Margaret T. Fuller. Regulation of stem cell division and self-renewal; cell type specific transcription machinery and the regulation of cell differentiation; developmental regulation of cell cycle progression during male meiosis; molecular dissection of the mechanism of cytokinesis.
David Hogness is interested in the molecular basis of Drosophila development, including genetic networks that control the larva-to-fly metamorphosis and their activation by the steroid hormone ecdysone via its receptor. Related work includes studies on the mechanisms of receptor activation by hetero-dimerization and chaperone catalysis (Emeritus Professor).
Dale Kaiser. Control of multicellular development in myxobacteria. Genetic pathways controlling cell to cell signaling, cellular movement, and cellular differentiation during fruiting body development. Biochemical studies of secreted signaling molecules (Emeritus Professor).
http://cmgm.stanford.edu/devbio/kaiserlab/
Seung Kim. Genetics of organogenesis. Control of cell fate and morphogenesis in vertebrate embryos and Drosophila. Regulation of pancreas development and evolution.
http://seungkimlab.stanford.edu
Stuart Kim. C. elegans genomics and systems biology. Using large scale gene expression data to find underlying themes and patterns in gene expression networks. Molecular mechanisms of aging in C. elegans and humans. Using genomics and molecular genetics to identify genes involved in specifying lifespan.
http://cmgm.stanford.edu/~kimlab/
David Kingsley. Forward genetic analysis of cartilage, bone, and joint formation; arthritis susceptibility; and repair and maintenance of skeletal structures in mice and humans. Comparative genomics and functional analysis of regulatory information controlling skeletal form. Genetic architecture and molecular basis of evolutionary change in wild populations, using threepsine sticklebacks as a model system to study dramatic morphological, physiological, and behavioral changes that have evolved in lakes and streams around the world.
http://kingsley.stanford.edu
http://cegs.stanford.edu
Harley McAdams. Global regulatory networks controlling the bacterial cell, their global organization, and function. Dynamics of spatially and temporally localized regulatory mechanisms in the cell. Genomic analysis.
Roeland Nusse. Signaling mechanisms in early development of mammals and Drosophila, with emphasis on Wnt signaling. A major focus of the lab is trying to understand how Wnt signaling influences the fate of stem cells, including neural stem cells, embryonic stem cells and mammary stem cells. Novels tools in these studies include the purification of active Wnt proteins and the use of strains of mice to visualize Wnt signaling in vivo.
http://www.stanford.edu/~rnusse/
Ellen Porzig, Human development: egg to embryo. Human sex determination and differentiation. Evolution and development of the human hand.
Marlene Rabinovitch. The research program headed by Dr. Marlene Rabinovitch focuses on understanding the regulation of genes associated with cardiovascular development and disease, through the use of cultured cells and tissues and genetically modified mouse models. A variety of different aberrant pathways are being characterized, including those related to signaling through the bone morphogenetic proteins, serotonin and the S100 family of calcium binding proteins, and those defining how a microtubule associated protein regulates mRNA translation.
Matthew Scott. Molecular genetics of pattern formation and gene regulation in animal development. Control of cell fate and tissue morphogenesis by homeo-domain proteins. Wnt and hedgehog signaling in development and cancer.
http://scottlab.stanford.edu/
Lucy Shapiro. A systems biology approach to studying the control of timing and spatial organization during cell cycle progression, cell differentiation, and the generation asymmetric daughter cells in Caulobacter. Genetic and molecular studies of signaling pathways that control asymmetric initiation of DNA replication, DNA methylation, targeted proteolysis, and dynamic protein localization, using state-of-the-art cell biology.
James Spudich. Control of cell shape and movement by actin, myosin, and associated regulatory proteins from eukaryotic cells, with emphasis on the molecular basis of cytokinesis. Regulation of actin and myosin assembly states. Molecular basis of energy transduction that leads to myosin movement on actin, including biophysical approaches to single molecule analysis.
William S. Talbot. Genetics and cell biology of glial development, axonal organization, and myelination in the zebrafish nervous system. Zebrafish models of neurological disease.
Anne Villeneuve. Genetic control of chromosome behavior during C. elegans development. Mutants that alter chromosome segregation during meiosis. Molecular studies of cis- and trans-acting factors that control recognition, pairing, recombination, and segregation of chromosomes.
http://villeneuve.stanford.edu/
Irving Weissman. Development and function of hematolymphoid cells in mice. Characterization of pure populations of hematopoietic stem cells. Changes in stem cell properties during development. Cell surface receptors that control lymphocyte homing to particular body tissues.
Joanna Wysocka. My laboratory studies the epigenetic regulation of differentiation and development; chromatin control in embryonic stem cells; the molecular basis of pluripotency; the role of histone modifications in the regulation of gene expression and memory of cell fate; and the mechanisms of writing and reading histone-methylation patterns.
Last updated: October 4, 2010