Molecular, Cell & Developmental Biology
Events occurring at the molecular level have an impact on cellular functions, which in turn affect the functions and developmental pathways of an organism. Basic research into the fundamental areas of molecular, cell and developmental biology could lead to a better understanding of how physiological systems and how the breakdown of such events leads to disease. The Biomedical Research Council currently supports numerous programs covering a wide ranging research in molecular, cell and developmental biology, with focus key topics in:
- Cell apoptosis cell cycle control
- Cell structure and function
- Signal transduction
- Developmental signalling and patterning
- Endodermal development
- Mammalian development
- Fish developmental biology
A*STAR institutes which carry out research in the above areas include the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB), the Institute of Medical Biology (IMB), and the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS).
| Endodermal Development and Differentiation |
IMB |
| Vertebrate Development Signalling |
IMB |
| Mammalian Development |
IMB |
| Human Embryology |
IMB |
| Developmental and Regenerative Biology |
IMB |
| Mechanisms of Apoptosis in Mammalian Cells |
IMCB |
| Cell Death and Human Disease Group |
IMCB |
| Regulation of Cell Division Cycle |
IMCB |
| Laboratory of Gene Expression and Regulatory Biology |
IMCB |
| Regulation of Membrane Traffic |
IMCB |
| Epithelial Cell Polarity |
IMCB |
| Protein Trafficking in Mammalian Cells |
IMCB |
| Mammary Gland Biology and Pathology |
IMCB |
| Developmental Biomedical Genetics |
IMCB |
| Developmental Neurobiology Research |
IMCB |
| Developmental Signalling and Patterning |
IMCB |
| Signal Transduction and Development |
IMCB |
| Fish Development Biology |
IMCB |
| PRL-3 and Cancer Metastasis |
IMCB |
| Deregulated activity of transcription factor NFkB |
IMCB |
| Controlling the Ras/ERK Pathway |
IMCB |
| Regulation and Function of STAT Proteins in Cell Signalling |
IMCB |
| Neural Differentiation and Degeneration |
IMCB |
| Stem Cell and Developmental Biology Division |
GIS |
| Systems Biology Division |
GIS |
Some recent highlights of their research efforts include:
- Esther Sook Miin Wong, Xavier Le Guezennec, Oleg N. Demidov, Nicolette Theresa Marshall, Siew Tein Wang, Janakiraman Krishnamurthy, Norman E. Sharpless, N. Ray Dunn and Dmitry V. Bulavin. p38MAPK controls expression of multiple cell cycle inhibitors and islet proliferation with advancing age. Developmental Cell, 2009, 17(1): 142 - 149
- Discovering that the elephant shark, a primitive deep-sea fish that belongs to the oldest living family of jawed vertebrates, could see colour like humans. The finding, published in the March 2009 issue of the prestigious journal, Genome Research, would enhance scientists’ understanding of how colour vision evolved in early vertebrates over the last 450 million years of evolution.
- Davies, W.L., Carvalho, L.S., Tay, B., Brenner, S., Hunt, D.M. and Venkatesh, B. Into the blue: gene duplication and loss underlie colour vision adaptations in a deep-sea chimaera, the elephant shark Callorhinchus milii. Genome Research, 2009; 19: 415-426
Last Updated on 13 August 2009