An infrastructure of signal transduction research laboratories is designed to serve the research themes of Emerging Infections and Host Defenses, Neural and Vascular Biology, and Cancer within the Ordway Research Institute and Wadsworth Center.

Crosstalk between transduction pathways involved in cytokine and growth factor signals and potentiation of these signals by thyroid hormone.

An enhanceosome-like complex of transactivator nucleoproteins formed in response to the nongenomic action of thyroid hormone.

Signal Transduction is the conversion of a cell surface signal into a coherent cellular response that is usually directed by the cell nucleus. The cell surface signals may be hormones or other circulating of local autocrine factors, such as cytokines whose production is incited by infectious agents. Physical factors such as ultraviolet light, hypoxia or pH change, may also serve as signals. The transduction of signals depends upon pathways of kinase enzymes that act predictably upon substrates, one or more of which translocate to the cell nucleus to modulate transcription of genes important to the specific response of a cell.

Improved understanding of these cascades enables the development of drugs that may be important to cancer management, to hypoxic cell rescue and to modification of the host response to an infectious agent.

Principal Investigators for the Signal Transduction Core

Paul J. Davis, M.D.
Faith B. Davis, M.D.
Hung-Yun Lin, Ph.D.

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