Cancer

We strive to understand fundamental relationships between function and structure in living tissues, primarily in neural tissue and in extracellular matrix (ECM). Specifically, we are interested in how microstructure, hierarchical organization, composition, and material properties all affect biological function and dysfunction. We investigate biological and physical model systems, such as “engineered” tissue constructs and tissue analogs at different time and length scales.

We study the cell biology of endocrine and neuroendocrine cells, focusing on the mechanisms of biosynthesis and intracellular trafficking of peptide hormones and neuropeptides and their processing enzymes, the regulation of dense-core secretory granule biogenesis, and the enzymatic and non-enzymatic roles of the prohormone processing enzyme carboxypeptidase E (CPE).