Morphogen activity gradients assign positional information within fields of cells in a concentration-dependent manner. As transcriptional changes respond to signaling activity thresholds, cells must encounter …
Recent increases in the incidence of congenital (hypospadias, cryptorchidism) and adult-onset (testis germ cell cancer, lowered sperm counts) diseases of the male reproductive tract are …
Liver transplantation remains the standard of care for liver failure but is constrained by a shortage of organs. Fetal hepatic cell transplantation (HCT) offers a …
Sex determination is an essential, and highly variable process, of organismal development. Looking for common threads used in evolution to determine sex is difficult simply …
Neurogenesis sharply declines with age in the subventricular zone (SVZ). The SVZ niche contains multipotent neural stem cells (NSCs) that can differentiate into neurons, astrocytes, …
Toxicity testing is undergoing a revolution, as the reliance on animal models has resulted in a large backlog of chemicals that have not been adequately …
This thesis is divided into two parts. The first part of this thesis, including chapters 1-3, examines the role of the protein Muscle specific kinase …
Population over the age of 65 is at a high risk of neurodegenerative diseases, especially Alzhiemer’s disease (AD), but there are currently no effective therapeutics …
Cellular heterogeneity is inherent in the brain, and resolving differential cell type-specific contributions to overall function is critical for understanding both normal and pathological neurobiology. …
A major contributing factor to the poor prognosis of patients diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the staggering rates of refractory and resistant disease. …
Due to the aggressiveness of TNBC and the relatively large proportion of reproductive-age women this disease afflicts, there is a critical need to develop novel …
Specification of the germline, the cells which give rise to eggs and sperm, is essential for sexually reproducing organisms. The mechanism by which animals specify …
Despite many studies linking FOXO factors to longevity, how these factors directly regulate aging particularly in humans, is not completely understood. The focus of this …
Transposons are parasitic DNA sequences that pose threats to genome stability across a range of eukaryotes. To defend against transposition into essential genes and destabilizing …
Abstract of “Endocrine Disruption of the Developing Human Fetal Prostate” by Camelia M. Saffarini, Ph.D., Brown University, May 2014 Prostate cancer is a major concern …
The abstract of Examining How Changes to the WOR1 Locus or the Wor1 Protein Impact the White-Opaque Switch in Candida albicans”by Peiling He, ScM, Brown …
The mammalian opsin family of light-sensitive G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) includes retinal pigments like rhodopsin (OPN2) and cone opsins (OPN1), which mediate vision, as well …
Fragile X syndrome, a leading cause of autism and the most common form of inherited intellectual disability, results from the loss of Fragile X mental …
Abstract of “GA-Binding Proteins Regulate Dosage Compensation in Drosophila melanogaster” by Emily Grace Kaye, Ph.D., Brown University, May 2018 A transcription factor (TF) will bind …
Vital to the function of any organ system is the proper specification and distribution of cell types during development. This is especially true for the …