Intermediate Fellowship research summary

It is well documented that a homeostatic balance between cell survival and cell death processes is essential for normal development and maintenance of an organism and is critical in preventing various human diseases such as cancer, autoimmune disorders, liver diseases, and neurodegenerative disorders. In contrast to initial views of signalling pathways as simple linear arrangements of phosphorylation cascades controlled by kinases and phosphatases that function in isolation, it is now clear that there are several interacting signalling networks, the coordination of which is crucial for maintaining the balance between cell life and death.

Human genome encodes nearly 210 phosphatases of which almost 50% of them are essential in controlling cell survival and cell death. In my laboratory, we utilize a systematic proteomic approach followed by various cell biology and molecular biology methods, to identify the functional interactome of cellular phosphatases. These systematic studies will permit us to put together an in vivo signaling network of phosphatases in regulation of cell survival and cell death processes.