TSRI Faculty Interests

Cell Adhesion

Baldwin, Kristin  
studies the sense of smell by genetically visualizing the neural circuits of the mouse olfactory system and uses mouse cloning and stem cell technology to investigate the molecular mechanisms that govern neural circuit formation and function throughout the nervous system.

Crossin, Kathryn  
focuses on understanding the signaling capabilities of various cell adhesion molecules on the cell's plasma membrane, particularly the neural cell adhesion molecule, N-CAM, and its ability to signal hippocampal neural precursor cells to become neurons rather that astroglia and to activate the transcription factor NFkB in astrocytes.

Cunningham, Bruce  
studies the detailed properties of cell surface glycoproteins that play critical roles in neural development, particularly cell adhesion molecules (CAMs), which bind cells together and generate signals that determine a cell's developmental destiny.

Edelman, Gerald  
examines several areas related to nervous system development and neural function, including cell-cell interactions during embyronic development, the role of cell adhesion molecules in neural plasticity, the molecular genetics of connectional defects in the nervous system, and transcriptional regulation and translational control in eukaryotic cells.

Felding-Habermann, Brunhilde  
establishes unique models of brain metastasis from circulating tumor cells of breast cancer patients and analyzes their properties in vitro and in vivo, investigates genes and functional pathways that control metastatic activity.

Friedlander, Martin  
examines the mechanisms whereby proteins are asymmetrically integrated into cell membranes and studies the basic mechanisms of ocular angiogenesis and potential therapeutic applications for treating degenerative retinal and neovascular eye diseases.

Milner, Richard  
uses a combination of mouse models and tissue culture cell–based assays to examine the role of fibronectin and endothelial fibronectin receptors in promoting cerebral angiogenesis during cerebral hypoxia and ischemia.

Paulson, James  
studies carbohydrate recognition and the molecular biology of carbohydrate binding proteins, like CD22, which mediate key aspects of cell signaling in the immune system.