Roel Nusse, Ph.D.

Professor of Developmental Biology

Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

We are interested in how cells communicate to each other during development. Together with members of the BMP, Hedgehog and FGF families, Wnt genes control many of the patterning and growth events during embryonic development. Wnt genes encode secreted signaling proteins, usually acting over a short range. Much of our understanding of Wnt signaling comes from the genetic analysis of wingless in Drosophila, which signals through the Frizzled receptors to a pathway using Armadillo/b-catenin and TCF as transcriptional effectors. Several components of the Wnt signal transduction pathway are implicated in the genesis of human cancer.

We have a major interest in purifying Wnt proteins in an active form and to use those proteins to manipulate stems cells in culture and we have some promising results in this area. Other efforts to study the specificity of Wnt signaling involve the use of the micro-array technology to identify unique and shared target genes. Among the novel target genes we found, several are also regulated by BMPs, suggesting that Wnt proteins cooperate with these other signaling factors to control cell fate.