The rockefeller university

Event Details

Type

Friday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Philip Beachy, Ph.D., Ernest and Amelia Gallo Professor, member, Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine; investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Speaker bio(s)

Many lethal or debilitating diseases can be attributed to the deranged activities of organ-specific stem cells, which normally function to renew our tissues during ordinary cellular turnover or in response to injury. Despite rapid advances in stem cell research, effective therapies based on our understanding of stem cells are emerging slowly. One avenue to accelerate progress would be the elucidation of “niche” signals from surrounding cells, which profoundly influence stem cell physiology.

 

The Hedgehog pathway provides a particularly useful perspective for understanding niche signals and their role in normal as well as pathological stem cell activities, as Hedgehog signaling plays a central role in regulating niche activity. In endodermal organs such as the urinary bladder, epithelial injury triggers augmented expression of the Hedgehog signal, which then elicits signals from underlying stromal cells that in turn trigger epithelial cell proliferation and differentiation. In this manner, the stromal niche serves as a template for the maintenance and repair of damaged epithelia. Similar injury-induced elicitation of niche signaling interactions occurs in other organs of endodermal derivation. In addition, Dr. Beachy’s laboratory has found recently that the niche signaling program for breast epithelial cells also depends on stromal activity of a major Hedgehog pathway transcriptional effector.

 

Dr. Beachy’s recent work is focused on the role of the stem cell niche in controlling stem cell activity during normal tissue maintenance and in pathological settings such as cancer and degenerative disease. His laboratory also continues to investigate the unusual mechanisms that mediate Hedgehog protein signaling.

 

Dr. Beachy received his Ph.D. in 1986 from Stanford University. Before joining the faculty at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1988, he was a staff associate at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. He returned to Stanford University in 2006, where he is the Ernest and Amelia Gallo Professor in the School of Medicine. Dr. Beachy has received several honors for his work, including the National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology in 1998, the March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology in 2008, the Keio Medical Science Prize in 2011, and the Katharine Berkan Judd Award from Memorial Sloan Kettering in 2016. He has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator since 1988 and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Open to

Public

Host

Elaine Fuchs, Ph.D.

Reception

Refreshments, 3:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m., Abby Lounge

Contact

Justin Sloboda

Phone

(212) 327-7785

Sponsor

Justin Sloboda
(212) 327-7785
jsloboda@rockefeller.edu