Dr. Nir Yakoby (assistant professor, CFAS-biology) has received a prestigious CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation. The five-year award, which is reviewed and renewed annually based on the scientific progress of the project, is $686,544 and supports the project “Dynamics and Diversity of Bone Morphogenetic Protein Signaling in Epithelial Cells.”
The grant will allow Yakoby and his research lab team to study the processes that occur during the time that cells decide what to become. Student researchers will join Yakoby in using the fruit fly Drosophila as an experimental system to study how very similar layers of cells produce different numbers of tubes. Through this work, the Rutgers–Camden researcher will seek to understand how changes in the bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signal create different morphologies in order to understand further tissue pathologies and developmental defects which are associated with mal-regulation of the BMP signal.
A major goal of the NSF CAREER Award is to integrate academic teaching with research in the lab. Rutgers–Camden students will participate in this research. >>Learn more about the work of the Yakoby Lab researchers.