NIH award supports research on the behaviors of diseased and healthy cells
Jude Phillip, core researcher at the Institute for NanoBioTechnology and assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, received an R35 MIRA (Maximizing Investigator Research Award) award from the National Institutes of Health, specifically the National Institute for General Medical Sciences, to develop an image-based platform to better understand the behaviors of healthy and diseased cells, and the factors that affect their actions.
Cells are adaptable systems that use information from their internal and external environment to respond to a variety of biological signals and stresses. Phillip and his team aim to design an image-based platform that can help them analyze the factors that cause cells to stop growing and become senescent, how and why immune fighting T cells adopt dysfunctional behaviors during aging, and how CD4+ helper T cells take on new single cell behaviors as they assume new cell identities during differentiation.
“Our long-term goal is to understand how biological information at the molecular level influence different cell interactions and lead to specific cell behaviors or new identities,” Phillip said. “The research will provide substantial new information on healthy and diseased cells.”
Advances in imaging technologies have allowed researchers to study cells at single-cell resolution. This has helped to profile cells into distinct cellular identities that are tied to their molecular states. Phillip and his team will build on this technology, their expertise, and computational methods to identify and define distinct populations.
Notably, the team is particularly interested in senescent cells. These cells are in a permanent molecular state in which cells stop growing and dividing and are thought to be a major contributor to age-related illnesses as they trigger inflammation and influence healthy cells. Understanding their behaviors and the behaviors of healthy immune cells will help the team identify what causes healthy cells to become senescent, what makes them susceptible to becoming senescent, and explore new approaches for treatment.