Cinquin Lab Research philosophy Lab Members ... UCI Overview Summary of research interests Multicellular organisms have evolved a great variety of cell types that perform specialized functions. Stem cell progeny that are destined to differentiate proliferate transiently and choose one of those cell types. This differentiation process, of great spatial and temporal precision, is at the heart of development and organ homeostasis. How differentiation is controlled is thus a question of tremendous importance from scientific and therapeutic standpoints. Although much progress has been made over the last century, a major stumbling block has appeared in the form of the complexity of the regulatory networks controlling differentiation. One finds that the gene-based approach that has served 20th-century biology so well is reaching its limits: we now need to understand the staggeringly-complex set of interactions between genes that have already been identified, rather than continue an endless pursuit of new genes. We follow three complementary approaches to address the regulation of cell proliferation and differentiation. In a first approach, we start from a fecund, simple model organ whose regulation has been extensively characterized at the genetic and biochemical levels: the | |
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