Grant: Project Grant

My overall research goal is to study how mutations in human cancers change the characteristics of normal cells to become like cancer cells. Specifically, I am interested in a family of genes called E2F whose function is abnormally activated in virtually all types of cancers. Understanding how E2F works could give us new clues about how tumors form. In my lab, we use fruit flies as a model system to better understand the function of E2F. More than 100 years of fruit fly research has helped scientists to develop sophisticated genetic tools and techniques allowing investigation of various aspects of E2F that are difficult to study in mice. One lesser-known aspect of E2F is that certain cells, especially exocrine cells (which produce and secrete substances like digestive enzymes), are particularly vulnerable when E2F doesn't function properly. For example, mice lacking two key E2F proteins (E2F1 and E2F2) develop diabetes partly because their exocrine cells shrink and stop working. This project takes advantage of the unique development of the fruit fly salivary gland to figure out why exocrine cells are especially sensitive to problems with E2F.