Focusing on Eye Development — Dr. Nicholas Baker has been awarded a four-year $1.6 million renewal grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. This funding continues 21 years of ongoing support for Dr. Baker’s research on cell-to-cell signaling molecules that control the specialization of retinal cells. Dr. Baker’s team has mapped out a circuit through which these molecules directly and indirectly affect genes that control the eye’s development. Among the most important genes involved in this process are helix-loop-helix transcription factors (TFs), a TF class that regulates cell growth and cell differentiation in many tissues. Defective helix-loop-helix TFs are found in eye diseases as well as in cancer, schizophrenia and diabetes. Dr. Baker plans to use the new award to study how these TFs are regulated and find strategies for influencing their activity. Dr. Baker is professor of genetics, of developmental & molecular biology and of ophthalmology & visual sciences, and he holds the Harold and Muriel Block Chair in Genetics.
Posted on: Thursday, June 12, 2014