Hannele T. Ruohola-Baker, Ph.D.

Research

The research in my lab focuses in two issues, miRNA function in Stem Cells and Drosophila as a model for human disease. (1) miRNA function in Stem Cells: One of the key characteristics of stem cells is their capacity to self-renew throughout the lifetime of an animal. Stem Cell self-renewing division is tightly controlled process; too little division disrupts the homeostasis of the tissue while too much can result in cancer. We and others have recently shown that miRNAs are required for germ line stem cell division in Drosophila (Hatfield et al., 2005; Shcherbata et al ., 2006). We are now in the process of identifying and analyzing the regulation of critical miRNAs in stem cell division 2) Our studies using Drosophila as a model for human diseases have focused on three main research areas A) Dystroglycan-Dystrophin complex-Muscular Dystrophy model B) Notch - cell cycle control C) Understanding Dystroglycan’s function in signaling pathway or cellular structure integrity which may provide new insight into disease mechanisms and aid new therapy development.