October 23, 2015
Translating the C. elegans Genome to Further the Study of Diseases Involving Cell Death
I interned this summer in a biology lab studying programmed cell death in Caenorhabditis elegans nematodes. Because its entire cell lineage is well-documented and invariant, the nematode worm C. elegans has been used intensively as a model for studying genetic control of cell death. The decision of a cell to die is made at the level of egl-1 transcription, a process that has been widely studied. My summer project used molecular cloning techniques to generate a GFP reporter for the egl-1 cell death gene. Through genetic screening and study of the EGL-1 protein, a product of the translation process, this reporter may facilitate discovery of novel genes controlling cell death, potentially identifying new ways to treat human diseases involving the misregulation of cell death, including neurodegenerative diseases, autoimmune diseases, and cancer.
Explore the MHC Social Universe >