Department of Biology

Throughout an organism's lifetime, its stem cells generate a variety of specialized cells with specific functions (e.g., blood cells, bone cells, brain cells). Correct organ-to-organ communication and maintenance of tissue stem cells provide proper tissue and organ function upon which an organism's survival depends. Learning more about how stem cells respond to changes in physiology is key to developing new medical treatments to regenerate and repair tissues that have been damaged or affected by disease.

Lesley Weaver, an assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Biology at Indiana University Bloomington, is studying how inter-organ communication maintains tissue behavior. She and her lab members seek new insight into how disruption of organ communication might lead to tissue abnormalities in many organisms, including humans.

Weaver's research has been funded $1.25 million through a Maximizing Investigators' Research Award for Early Stage Investigators (R35). The MIRA, as the award is known, is presented by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), a section of the National Institutes of Health. It provides support for an investigator's research that falls within the mission of NIGMS. The MIRA provides researchers with greater stability and flexibility which in turn enhances scientific productivity and the chances for important breakthroughs. The award is for five years.

The goal of Weaver's research is to determine how signaling downstream of transcription factors in different tissues influences circulating factors (such as steroids, small molecules, and nutrients) that regulate stem cell lineages and tissue function.

To accomplish the goal, she and her lab members will use a combination of genetics, cell biology, and next-generation sequencing to address two major questions:

1. How do transcription factors coordinate their activity in multiple tissues and cell types to regulate stem cell behavior?
2. How is nuclear receptor (transcription factors that respond to environmental cues) directed energy homeostasis maintained in organs to ensure survival of stem cell lineages and maintain tissue function?

Their results will provide a foundation for understanding the downstream mechanisms used by transcription factors in peripheral tissues to influence the behavior of adult stem cell lineages. They will also inform future studies focused on understanding how disrupted endocrine signaling results in tissue and organ failure.