Lab
Hill Lab
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Statement of Research Interest
The work of Caroline Hill’s laboratory focuses on the Transforming Growth Factor beta (TGF-beta) superfamily, a group of growth and differentiation factors comprising the TGF-betas, Activins, Nodals, BMPs and GDFs. These ligands play critical roles during early vertebrate development in the specification and subsequent patterning of the germ layers, and deregulation of TGF-beta, BMP and Nodal signalling has been implicated in cancer.
Caroline Hill and her co-workers want to understand how these pathways function normally in early vertebrate development and in adult untransformed tissue culture cells, and how these signalling pathways are perturbed in cancer. They have been exploiting the very powerful combination of early zebrafish embryos, together with a variety of model tissue culture systems, and have used methodologies ranging from developmental and cell biology to computational modelling. Their goal is to understand the mechanism by which signals from receptors for TGF-beta superfamily members are transduced to the nucleus and how this leads to regulation of transcription of target genes. They are defining what molecules are involved and how they act and elucidating how the pathways are regulated. They want to know in particular how parameters such as cell type, signalling context, and signal intensity and duration, contribute to shaping the biological response to TGF-beta superfamily ligands. They also aim to understand how TGF-beta signalling contributes to cancer, in particular how it acts as a tumour suppressor and a tumour promoter, and how it might switch between these two behaviours as tumours progress. They want to be able to use this knowledge to determine how the tumour promoting effects of TGF-beta can specifically be inhibited for therapeutic ends and to develop useful biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer.
Caroline Hill and her co-workers want to understand how these pathways function normally in early vertebrate development and in adult untransformed tissue culture cells, and how these signalling pathways are perturbed in cancer. They have been exploiting the very powerful combination of early zebrafish embryos, together with a variety of model tissue culture systems, and have used methodologies ranging from developmental and cell biology to computational modelling. Their goal is to understand the mechanism by which signals from receptors for TGF-beta superfamily members are transduced to the nucleus and how this leads to regulation of transcription of target genes. They are defining what molecules are involved and how they act and elucidating how the pathways are regulated. They want to know in particular how parameters such as cell type, signalling context, and signal intensity and duration, contribute to shaping the biological response to TGF-beta superfamily ligands. They also aim to understand how TGF-beta signalling contributes to cancer, in particular how it acts as a tumour suppressor and a tumour promoter, and how it might switch between these two behaviours as tumours progress. They want to be able to use this knowledge to determine how the tumour promoting effects of TGF-beta can specifically be inhibited for therapeutic ends and to develop useful biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer.
Lab Members