I am a scientist in Jennifer Zallen's lab in the Developmental Biology program at Sloan-Kettering Institute, and our lab is part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. As a developmental biologist, I investigate the ways that cells communicate with each other and how they function as groups in the embryo. Understanding these complex and fundamental principles of biology is important. When groups of cells behave abnormally or cannot communicate with their neighbors during development, this results in structural birth defects; similarly, one of the hallmarks of cancer is a lack of efficient and proper communication among cells.

All animals develop by certain conserved, fundamental principles; but subtle differences in these processes generate variation in nature and congenital defects in humans. These are some of questions that interest me the most:

How do cells and tissues of a developing embryo interact with each other?

How do cells integrate information from (1) DNA, (2) the local environment (e.g. two cells next to each other) and (3) their global environment (e.g. secreted factors, circulating hormones) to generate complex and functional structures?

How have these phenomena evolved to produce the incredible anatomical diversity that exists in nature?