Dung-Fang Lee Discovers Signaling Pathway in Embryonic Stem Cell Self-Renewal and Pluripotency
Dung-Fang Lee, PhD, a NYSCF – Druckenmiller Fellow Alumnus at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, has published a new study in the August edition of Cell Stem Cell that elucidates a molecular signal necessary to maintain self-renewal and pluripotency in embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and somatic cells. When regulatory molecule aurora kinase A was depleted, Dr. Lee and his team found inhibited gene expression in ESCs. This suggests the essential role aurora kinase A signaling plays in cell differentiation, self-renewal, and reprogramming.