Inventors
Hilary Coller is Associate Professor at UCLA. The Coller lab uses genomic approaches to gain insight into cell cycle control in normal tissues and cancer. Because uncontrolled cell division is so dangerous for an organism, the well-behaved cell must know not only when to divide, but crucially when not to. Shutting down cell division prevents tumors and maintains the proper form of tissues. Many cells, though, including fibroblasts, must also retain the ability to start dividing again when conditions are right, when the organism must grow, or a damaged tissue must be repaired. A cell in such a temporary, non-dividing state is said to be quiescent. Signals that send a cell into quiescence include loss of contact with the underlying surface, too much contact with neighboring cells, and not receiving specific growth factors from the surroundings.
David Corney is a Visiting Postdoctoral Research Associate, Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University. Dr. Corney obtained his Ph.D. at Cornell University, where he identified tumor suppressive microRNAs regulated by the p53 tumor suppressor gene. During postdoctoral studies at Stanford University he studied the role of microRNAs in colorectal cancer and used RNA-seq to characterize the transcriptomes of proliferative and quiescent intestinal stem cells. Working together with Dr. Coller at Princeton University and UCLA he is using RNA-seq to characterize the quiescent fibroblast transcriptome and determine the functional role of alternative polyadenylation events.
Intellectual Property Status
Patent protection is pending.
Princeton is seeking to identify appropriate partners for the further development and commercialization of this technology.
Contact
Laurie Tzodikov
Princeton University Office of Technology Licensing • (609) 258-7256• tzodikov@princeton.edu
Laurie Bagley
Princeton University Office of Technology Licensing • (609) 258-5579• lbagley@princeton.edu