Dr. Van Raay's lab understands animal development proceeds through the coordinated effort of several signalling pathways that are highly conserved throughout evolution. Many of these same signalling pathways continue to regulate stem cells in adults. As many cancers arise from stem cells, it is n...
Dr. Van Raay's lab understands animal development proceeds through the coordinated effort of several signalling pathways that are highly conserved throughout evolution. Many of these same signalling pathways continue to regulate stem cells in adults. As many cancers arise from stem cells, it is not surprising that the same pathways required for development are the ones that also cause disease when they become unregulated by mutations. Van Raay's lab is therefore interested in understanding how these signalling pathways are regulated during development with the ultimate goal of figuring out how to control the pathway in disease. Towards this end, his lab focuses on the highly conserved Wnt signalling pathway which, when misregulated, is the cause of greater than 90% of all colon cancers. They take advantage of the zebrafish model, using CRISPR technology to create genetic mutants, transgenics to visualize active signalling and cell biology and biochemistry to interrogate the molecular mechanisms that regulate this important pathway.