Medical Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2003

Mentor: Keith Wharton, MD PhD
Department: Pathology and Molecular Biology
Room number: NB6.440
Mail Code: 9072
Phone number: 81959
E-mail: keith.Wharton@utsouthwestern.edu
Project title: Naked, a negative regulator of Wnt signal transduction

Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable):

Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): 0907-02-02-1

Project Type (patient-based research, animal-based research, or basic research; this characterization is only to permit a general classification for grouping similar types of projects)

Animal-based and basic

Brief Description of Project:

Secreted Wnt proteins transmit intercellular signals that coordinate cell fate determination and tissue morphogenesis throughout development, and maintain stem cells and tissue architecture in the adult. Consequently, altered Wnt signaling can cause diseases such as osteoporosis and cancer. The prevailing paradigm for Wnt signaling was discovered through its role in embryonic segmentation of the fruit fly Drosophila. My laboratory uses fruit flies, mice, and cancer cell lines to investigate the mechanism of naked cuticle (nkd), a conserved family of Wnt signal regulators. Loss of nkd activity in Drosophila produces a phenotype very similar to loss of the tumor suppressor gene homologs Axin or APC, so our working hypothesis is that the verterbrate nkd genes are also a tumor suppressors. A long-term interest of the lab is to understand how the activity of several signal transduction pathways is coordinated in space and time to produce the abnormal yet often stereotyped cell and tissue patterns observed in diseased tissues.

Previous Research Activities or Publications with Medical Students:

None.

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