Research OverviewTissue Engineering Tissue Engineering is a specialized branch of biotechnology concerned with growing tissues, primarily for skin, limb, and organ replacement in humans, with applications in veterinary medicine and agriculture. This field is in its early stages of research and development, with enormous potential for saving lives and improving the quality of life. In vertebrates such as humans, most organs consist of layers of cells that interact during development to form the unique shapes and forms that characterize various parts of the body. This process is a branch of developmental biology known as morphogenesis----the genesis of form and structure in living things... Complete Information... | Research DescriptionResearch Areas: Physiology Research Specialties: cell architecture, tissue morphogenesis, extracellular matrix A fundamental question facing developmental biologists and tissue engineers is: How do epithelial cells form the uniquely shaped structures (e.g. flat sheets, spherical cysts, elongated tubes) that are critical for tissue function? It is known that the architecture of virtually all epithelia is dependent upon coordinated adhesive interactions between individual cells and extracellular substrates. These interactions are mediated by transmembrane receptors that are linked to the cytoskeleton by cytoplasmic adapter proteins. Defective interactions between epithelial cells and their extracellular substrates are implicated in a wide variety of pathological conditions that include tissue fragility diseases and increased tumor invasiveness. My laboratory is interested in the regulation of epithelial morphogenesis during development, with a specific interest in how extracellular matrix proteins, transmembrane receptors, and cytoskeletal adapters work together to... Complete Information... |
Representative PublicationsXu X, Dong C, Vogel BE. (2007) Hemicentins assemble on diverse epithelia in the mouse. J Histochem Cytochem. 55:119-26.
Vogel BE, Muriel JM, Dong C, Xu X. (2006) Hemicentins: what have we learned from worms? Cell Res. 16:872-8. Muriel, J.M., Xu, X. and Vogel, B.E. (2006) Selective assembly of fibulin-1 splice variants reveals distinct extracellular matrix networks and novel functions for Perlecan/UNC-52 splice variants. Dev. Dyn. 235:2632-40.
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