Changes in cellular behavior underlie development, disease, and tissue homeostasis. The response of cells to external factors depends upon posttranslational signals and changes in gene expression. These biomolecules are wired together in cells to form networks. Intracellular signaling and gene-expression networks are highly interconnected and time dependent, making them difficult to study and even harder to understand at the systems level. My lab designs new experimental and computational approaches for analyzing such networks. We draw from engineering principles to inspire new techniques that can be applied to network-level questions about signal transduction and gene expression. We are specifically using these methods for problems in cancer biology, where the molecular “signal processing” has gone awry and cellular responses are inappropriate.
Awards and Achievements
- Rita Schaffer Young Investigator Award ( 2006)
- The Biomedical Engineering Society Pew Scholar ( 2009)
- The Pew Charitable Trusts NIH Director’s New Innovator Award ( 2009)
- The National Institutes of Health Kavli Fellow ( 2012)
- The National Academy of Sciences