The role of metabolic adaptation in stress tolerance, tumorigenesis, and fungal drug resistance

Our group studies novel mechanisms of rapid cellular adaptation to stress. We are primarily interested in how membraneless organelles coordinate real-time adaptability of cellular functionality, particularly metabolic responses. Some cells are not well equipped to deal with stress. These include neurons and aging cells in which we study neurodegenerative brain diseases. Other cells cause disease by being “too adaptive” to stress. These include pathogens and cancer cells that acquire drug resistance. Chemoresistance is one of the greatest health and food production challenges of our time, hence this project will focus on finding novel mechanisms that can be targeted for therapeutic development. Finally, metabolic stress response pathways can be manipulated for synthetic food production, so some of our work focuses on novel methods of metabolic engineering.

This project will dramatically impact the fields of drug resistant microbial pathogens, chemo-resistant tumors, and synthetic food engineering. Along with developing an independent, novel, and innovative research program together with the PI and colleagues, a successful candidate will master valuable technical skills in gene editing, high-end live cell imaging and super-resolution approaches, metabolomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics.