Section: Research

Victor Ambros

Academic Role: Professor

Faculty Appointment(s) In:
   Interdisciplinary Graduate Program
   Program in Molecular Medicine

Molecular and genetic control of animal development; microRNA regulatory mechanisms

We are interested in the genetic regulatory mechanisms that control animal development, and in particular the molecules that function during animal development to ensure the proper timing of developmental events. We have primarily employed the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as a model system for studying the function of regulators of developmental timing, which in C. elegans are known as the “heterochronic genes”, in  reference to the remarkable changes in relative timing of developmental event that are elicited by mutations in these genes. The heterochronic genes comprise a set of interrelated regulatory pathways that include proteins that regulate the transcription of other genes, and also a class of small RNA, known as microRNAs, that regulate the production of protein by the messenger RNAs of specific target genes. Much of our research in recent years has been aimed at understanding how microRNAs are integrated into broader regulatory networks related to animal development and human disease, and at uncovering the molecular mechanisms for how microRNAs exert their effects on gene expression. 

Office: Biotech II - Suite #306
Phone: (508) 856-6380
Fax: (508) 856-4289
E-mail: Victor.Ambros@umassmed.edu

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