Investigators

Summary

The overall research focus of the Roy laboratory is studying the role of actin-binding proteins and actin-regulated transcription factors in physiological and pathological events. Specific focus areas are actin-binding proteins (profilin, Ena/VASP) and their regulation, MRTF-SRF transcriptional axis, fundamental mechanisms of cell migration, cancer biology (breast and renal cancer), cell signaling, vascular-immune cell crosstalk, and angiogenesis (in both developmental and pathological settings). We seek to a.) understand molecular mechanisms of various aspects of cancer metastasis, regulation of tumor microenvironment and therapy response of cancer cells, and b.) Discover novel therapeutic agents. Our laboratory uses a variety of experimental approaches including CRISPR/RNAi, protein-protein interactions, 2D gel electrophoresis, genetically engineered mouse models of cancer and angiogenesis, mouse models of atherosclerosis, tumor xenografts, metastasis assays, in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo angiogenesis assays, functional genomics and proteomics, live-cell imaging at single cell level, computationally-guided small molecule screening and bioinformatics.