Grant: Project Grant

During human development, cells behave like building blocks and fascinatingly come together in an organized and well-controlled manner to build the human body. Within this process, we can think of cells as building blocks consisting of support foundations made up of complex interactions of between proteins, DNA and RNA. These support foundations determine the choices of whether a cell becomes a blood, brain, or skin cell, or many other cell types that make up a human being. The earliest cell type that can be isolated, grown and studied is an embryonic stem cell. The proposed research aims on understanding how the embryonic stem cell fate changes during the early phases of development and the mechanisms that control such changes. Specifically, we aim to resolve these important elements, with focus on RNA and protein interactions, behind building a normal embryonic cell and its progeny. We believe that our work will provide novel insights into the decisions taken by early cells of our body leading towards healthy human embryo development, but most importantly our studies will also shed new light the mechanisms involved in this process.