Rebecca Adikes, Assistant Professor
Cytoskeletal regulation of cell migration
My research program is focused on understating cell migration. A cell can either be born where it needs to be or it can migrate to reach its final destination. My students and I are interested in learning (1) how cells know when and where to move, (2) how a cell transmits the signal to move from the outside environment to inside the cell, and (3) what intracellular factors are required and how they are arranged to provide the structure and mechanical force for the cell to move. We are interested in these questions as cell migration is essential during development, post-development (i.e. your immune response), and occurs in many disease states (i.e., cancer metastasis). Most of what we currently know about how cells move and navigate their environments comes from studies done on cells taken out of an animal and studied in a dish. We are interested in understanding how cells behave in their native environment —a whole organism. To study migration in vivo my students and I use C. elegans, a microscopic roundworm that has a short life cycle, is amenable to genetic manipulations, and can easily be imaged using standard microscopy techniques.
Currently, my students and I are completing an RNAi screen to identify cellular factors that are required for a long-distance cell migration in larval C. elegans. Once we establish what factors are required, we will delve into the role and regulation of the factors. Future research will establish if the role of these factors is conserved in cell migration in a vertebrate system, zebrafish.