Mentor Areas
The Bugaj Lab studies how cells make decisions like when to grow, differentiate, or die, and we engineer new molecular probes to help ask these questions. We develop "optogenetic" proteins that allow us to control living cells using light to better study how cells coordinate their behavior through time and space. We also build "thermogenetic" proteins that control cells using small changes in temperature, and we apply these for remote control of cells in living animals. We also use synthetic biology to develop molecular systems that sense disease states and autonomously provide a therapeutic response. We apply these and other approaches to important problems, for example to understand how cell signal transmission changes in cancer cells and how this impacts their response to therapy, or how cells respond and survive in the presence of toxic stresses. Through this work, we hope to reveal fundamental insights of how cells work while developing new biotechnology for cellular engineering and control for a variety of biomedical applications. Our work relies heavily on DNA design and assembly, mammalian cell culture, fluorescence microscopy, and image analysis.
Description:
Projects will vary. Interested students should contact us to discuss possibilities
Preferred Qualifications
While there are no strict requirements, previous coursework in cell biology and basic familiarity with a programming language (eg. Matlab, R, Python) is preferred
Project Website
Learn more about the researcher and/or the project here. Bugaj Lab
Details:
Preferred Student Year
First-year, Second-Year, Junior
Academic Term
Spring, Summer, Fall
I prefer to have students start during the above term(s).Volunteer
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to volunteers.Paid
No
Yes indicates that faculty are open to paying students they engage in their research, regardless of their work-study eligibility.Work Study
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to hiring work-study-eligible students.