Silver: Pathways in Disease

Pathways in Disease
Many signaling pathways employ spatial organization as a key part of their timing and response to environmental stimuli. For example, the movement of key proteins in and out of the nucleus is often one of the downstream steps in signal response. We have taken advantage of this spatial organization to screen for small molecules that affect signaling pathways in cancer cells. This approach has been highly successful and has contributed to a widely used cell-based screening approach as well as lead compounds in cancer studies.

Currently, we are building on these findings to gain a more quantitative picture of how cells respond to certain drugs. We employ a combination of high resolution microscopy, modeling and cell-based screens. We have carried out a whole human genome siRNA screen based on nuclear transport. In doing so we have uncovered, a host of new genes that impact on the pathway and have importance in diseases.