cell adhesion

mechanotransduction

morphogenesis

Doug has been interested in the problem of morphogenesis since grad school. As a doctoral student with Mel Spiegel, he described blastomere lineage-specific differences in cell surface protein expression in sea urchin embryos. While a postdoc with Richard Hynes at MIT, he and his colleagues provided the first molecular characterization of integrin receptors. Since coming to UVA his lab has used Xenopus embryos to investigate the roles of extracellular matrix proteins, integrins and cadherins in cell adhesion and migration. Doug's current focus is to uncover the roles mechanical forces play in adhesion-dependent cell-signaling, morphogenesis and cell-fate determination.

Bette was first introduced to extracellular matrix as a high school student intern at Ciba-Geigy corporation where she spent her summer sectioning arthritic rabbit knees. In graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, and then as a postdoc at Shriners Hospital in Portland, Oregon, she became fascinated by the question of how cells assemble and interact with their extracellular matrix. She joined Doug’s lab in order to study the dynamics of the matrix during the complex morphogenetic cell and tissue movements of early embryogenesis.

Dave is in interested in how morphogenic machines work. He spent several years in the Keller lab investigating how cell movements generate morphogenic shape changes and how groups of cells work together to generate the forces that drive these changes. In the DeSimone lab, he has taken this to the next (smaller-scale) level, and is working to understand the cell biology underlying the biomechanics of morphogenic machines.

As an undergrad at the University of Chicago, Gustavo was intrigued by the simple invasion assays he conducted on Lymphangioleiomyomatosis cells, a rare lung cancer cell that is only found in women. He further explored his interest in cell migration as a post-bac at the NIH, where he characterized epithelial cancer cell migration at the single-cell level in 3D culture systems. He was especially excited to join the UVA Medical Scientist Training Program for his MD/PhD to study molecular mechanisms underlying collective cell migration in the DeSimone lab. In Gustavo's free time, he enjoys exploring the restaurant scenes of Charlottesville, Richmond, and Washington DC. In fact, he was able to eat fancy meals for free while in college by taking pretty pictures of the food!