Anne L. Calof
Anatomy & Neurobiology, School of Medicine
Developmental & Cell Biology, School of Biological Sciences
Phone: (949) 824-4616
Email: alcalof@uci.edu
http://www.ucihs.uci.edu/anatomy/calofres.html
http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=2420
Anne Calof
Dr. Caolf’s laboratory's research efforts are concentrated on two main topics: (1) understanding the nature and the targets of the signals that regulate the production of neurons by neuronal stem and progenitor cells during development and regeneration of the nervous system; and (2) understanding the molecular etiology of human genetic diseases that affect growth and development, especially of the nervous system. To understand these questions, they study the basic biology of endogenous stem cells in the mouse nervous system and in other regions of the body, using mouse genetics, molecular biology, tissue culture, and computational approaches. The goal is to understand how key genes regulate organ system growth and patterning, and how key signaling molecules regulate stem and progenitor cell numbers in the stem cell niches of sensory epithelia (eye, ear, tongue, olfactory epithelium) and other developing organs. Because current models of cancer believe that many tumors arise from critical events that result in expansion of cells in various stem cell niches in the body, this work is at the juxtaposition of developmental biology and cancer cell biology, and involves analyses and studies crucial to both. For example, Dr. Calof’s studies on sensory cell biology have led to the understanding that molecules of the TGF-beta superfamily of secreted proteins are key negative regulators of stem cell expansion during embryogenesis, and this signaling system has been known for many years to control cell cycle and growth of cancer cells. In addition, although they employ the mouse as a model genetic system for most of their studies; work is expanding into the use of zebrafish and human stem cells, in collaboration with other researchers at UCI and at other institutions.
Selected Publications:
Murray, R. C., Navi, D., Fesenko, J., Lander, A. D., and Calof, A. L. (2003). Widespread defects in the primary olfactory pathway caused by loss of Mash1 function. J Neurosci 23(5), 1769-80.
Wu, H. H., Ivkovic, S., Murray, R. C., Jaramillo, S., Lyons, K. M., Johnson, J. E., and Calof, A. L. (2003). Autoregulation of neurogenesis by GDF11. Neuron 37(2), 197-207.
Kawauchi, S., Beites, C. L., Crocker, C. E., Wu, H. H., Bonnin, A., Murray, R., and Calof, A. L. (2004). Molecular signals regulating proliferation of stem and progenitor cells in mouse olfactory epithelium. Dev Neurosci 26(2-4), 166-80.
Beites, C. L., Kawauchi, S., Crocker, C. E., and Calof, A. L. (2005). Identification and molecular regulation of neural stem cells in the olfactory epithelium. Exp Cell Res 306(2), 309-16.
Kawauchi, S., Shou, J., Santos, R., Hebert, J. M., McConnell, S. K., Mason, I., and Calof, A. L. (2005). Fgf8 expression defines a morphogenetic center required for olfactory neurogenesis and nasal cavity development in the mouse. Development 132(23), 5211-23.
Kim, J., Wu, H. H., Lander, A. D., Lyons, K. M., Matzuk, M. M., and Calof, A. L. (2005). GDF11 controls the timing of progenitor cell competence in developing retina. Science 308(5730), 1927-30. |
