Our laboratory focuses on the growth, development, and integrity of animal tissues. We study various organs to identify common principles and extend these investigations to cancer and injury repair. In most organs, different cell types are generated by stem cells, which also make copies of themselves to maintain the tissue. An optimal balance between stem cells and differentiated cells is essential for proper organ function. Locally-acting signals are crucial for maintaining this balance in a spatially-organized manner, and understanding these signals is key to regulating growth.

A common theme linking our work is Wnt signaling. Research from many laboratories, including our own, has shown that Wnt proteins are essential for controlling stem cells. How this control is achieved remains unclear and is a subject of our studies, both in vivo and in cell culture. Wnt signaling is unique and differs from other pathways in many ways. The main intracellular player, β-catenin, is involved in cell adhesion but can also induce or repress genes, suggesting a fundamental link between adhesion and gene expression. As far as we know, Wnt signaling occurs in tissues, not in single cells, and emerged during the evolution of metazoan animals.

A recent interest in our lab is how the cell cycle is regulated by signals, including Wnts. We are using live imaging of cells grown as organoids and are developing novel cell cycle reporters. Other questions we address is how physiological changes, such as those occurring during hormonal stimuli, injury, or programmed tissue degeneration, impact self-renewal signals and stem cell biology.