Bruce J. Mayer PhD

Our group is interested in mechanisms of signal transduction. The ability of a cell to receive signals from the surrounding environment and respond to those signals appropriately is literally a matter of life and death. Whether a cell will proliferate, differentiate, or die, where it will adhere or migrate, virtually all aspects of its behavior depend on the ability to accurately interpret signals. Not only is signaling critical for normal development and the day-to-day function of an organism, but disregulated signaling underlies many human diseases such as cancer and autoimmune disorders. It is now appreciated that one of the central elements of the signaling machinery is the highly regulated and specific formation of protein-protein complexes. The fact that signaling relies on the binding of proteins to each other presents extraordinary opportunities: binding can be used as a means of identifying critical components of signaling pathways, and also provides the basis for strategies to inhibit those pathways in the laboratory or the clinic. We use a combination of biochemical and cell biological techniques to understand signaling pathways such as those that control cell proliferation and the organization of the cytoskeleton. We are also actively pursuing novel proteomic approaches to identify functionally important protein interactions and to characterize interactions on a global scale.