RESEARCH
The Coffman lab studies the developmental physiology of sea urchin embryogenesis. We are currently engaged in two projects. The first concerns the genetic and epigenetic regulatory circuitry that controls cell proliferation, survival, and differentiation  during development. The central focus of this effort is the Runx family of transcriptional regulatory proteins, a linchpin of developmental signaling in animals that is causally associated with cancer in humans. The second project concerns axisspecification, the symmetry breaking process that establishes the spatial coordinates of the body plan. This effort seeks to identify the signal through which an asymmetric distribution of mitochondria in the zygote controls the expression of genes required for specifying the secondary axis of the embryo, and to elucidate how environmental agents such as nickel, zinc, and hypoxia perturb transduction of that signal, causing radialized development of the embryo.
Research Projects are described in greater detail here.
|
