Cells are very small, complicated machines -
we want to know how the moving parts work.
Regulation of microtubule dynamics
Microtubules are polarized, non-covalent polymers of αβ-tubulin that form the main structural scaffolding of the mitotic spindle, organize the trafficking of membrane-bound organelles, and establish patterns of cell polarity during cell migration and morphogenesis. These activities all demand a high degree structural plasticity so that microtubules may be organized into various functional arrays as cells proceed through the cell cycle or respond to external signals. Microtubules are extremely dynamic, growing and shrinking primarily by cycles of subunit addition and loss from their ends in a process termed dynamic instability. We are studying how microtubule organization and dynamics are regulated by proteins that selectively interact with their ends.
Cellular contractility
One of the most dramatic examples of cellular force production is contractility - the generation of pulling forces by the actin cytoskeleton and its associated motor proteins, the myosins. Contractile force production is a fundamental property of many cell types and is used to perform a variety of biological functions. Cells can contract upon themselves to change shape during muscle contraction or during cytokinesis. Cells can contract against their surroundings to produce traction forces that allow them to crawl from one place to another. Or, cells can exert these forces against each other to drive tissue remodeling during embryonic development or during wound healing. Although we know the identities of many of the key molecules that regulate contraction and produce the actual forces, we lack a deep understanding about how these cellular components function together as a system. Our strategy is to study the process of contractility in a simple, experimentally tractable model system - Drosophila - to systematically identify the molecules involved using functional genomic techniques and to understand how they function together as a network.
