Signaling Program

The Signaling Program is led by Bruce Mayer, Ph.D. The work of the Program focuses on mechanisms of signal transduction. Because cancer is fundamentally a disease of signaling gone awry, such basic research on signaling mechanisms sheds light on the cellular changes responsible for tumorigenesis, tumor progression, metastasis, and angiogenesis. Such studies are also essential for identifying novel targets for drug therapy of cancer, and for developing novel molecular diagnostic methods for improved detection and prognosis. In addition to studies on specific signaling pathways, several members of the signaling program are actively developing novel methods to detect and quantitate proteins and their interactions in living cells, and to quantitatively describe signal transduction networks using computer-based methods.

Dr. Mayer’s group studies signaling from tyrosine kinases, and is developing novel methods to analyze the functional consequences of protein-protein interactions and novel molecular diagnostic methods to classify tumors. The laboratories of Dr. Rashmi Bansal and Dr. Steven Pfeiffer study signal transduction that regulates oligodendrocyte differentiation, using proteomic and biochemical approaches. Dr. John Carson’s group uses fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and other innovative imaging methods to analyze the mechanisms of particle transport in living cells. Drs. Betty Eipper, Richard Mains, and Martin Schiller study the signaling mechanisms that regulate vesicle transport and bioactive peptide processing in neurons. Dr. David Han’s group uses mass spectrometry and proteomic methods to understand signaling pathways including those that regulate apoptosis. Dr. Timothy Hla’s laboratory studies the regulation of angiogenesis by bioactive lipids. Dr. Laurinda Jaffe’s group studies the role of tyrosine kinases and other signaling molecules in oocyte maturation and fertilization. Dr. Leslie Loew is director of the Center for Biological Imaging Technology and developer of the Virtual Cell computer modeling platform, and his group is developing methods to visualize signaling events and to quantitatively model signaling pathways. Dr. Dianqing Wu’s group studies the Wnt and Hegdgehog signaling pathways, both of which have been implicated in human cancer.