Carole LaBonne, PhD
Professor, Molecular Biosciences; Judd A. and Marjorie Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Research Program
Cancer-Focused Research
For the past 16 years, work in my laboratory has centered on understanding the normal development of the neural crest, a stem cell population central to the evolution of the vertebrates, and at understanding how diseases such as cancer result from the aberrant development of this cell type. We have sought to understand at a mechanistic level how the stem cell population forms, what controls the maintenance of its multipotency, how its migratory and invasive behavior is controlled, and ultimately, how neural crest cells are directed to adopt specific lineage fates.