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NIH
gRANT SUPPORTS SALIVARY GLAND RESEARCH A
new $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health
will support the salivary gland research of faculty members
Tina Jaskoll and Michael Melnick. The funds will be provided
over five years and allow the research team to hire additional
lab technicians and support staff.
Their research focuses on EDA
and EDAR—two genes indispensable to proper salivary gland
development. By using hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia (HED)—a
disorder characterized by abnormal development of teeth, hair,
nails, sweat glands and salivary glands— as a disease model,
they hope to define the role of these two critical genes.
Jaskoll and Melnick are
utilizing the pair of genes to understand how the salivary
gland develops in the embryonic stages of life. Ultimately,
they hope to create a working diagram of the complex chemical
processes that lead to the gland’s creation and function.
To make this diagram, the team
will utilize systems biology—a newly employed and complex
hybrid of systems engineering and biochemistry. Jaskoll and
Melnick are among an emerging group of researchers who utilize
the discipline to map molecular interactions within the cell.
“We are applying systems
engineering to biochemical processes within the cell. It’s
the way signals get processed within the cell. It’s actually
similar to electronic circuits, but rather than being
physical, it’s chemical,” says Melnick.
Jaskoll and Melnick’s work
with salivary glands stems from a broader interest in the
development of all biological structures. They chose to study
the salivary gland for it’s relative simplicity and the
manner in which it develops.
“The salivary gland is a
classic system,” Jaskoll says. “For us it turns out to be
the most fascinating because you have to have cell death in
the center, but all the cells can’t die. So somehow you have
to have death, but not death. That happens all the time in the
body. It’s a nice system to play off, growth and death, and
how they work together to end with us looking like we do.”
For Melnick and Jaskoll, this
project is the latest chapter in a body of work that stretches
back over two and a half decades. Beginning with their cleft
palate work in the late 1970’s, the duo has produced over 50
peer-reviewed papers together. While they have no definitive
date for completion, this project will be the duo’s last.
“For me this is the grand
finale,” says Melnick who plans to retire upon completion of
the project. “I began my academic career 30 years ago with
mathematical genetics, and I shall end it sometime in the next
10 years with mathematical genetics.”
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