Scientific Overview

General Overview

“Systems biology” looks at the living cell as a large assemblage of interacting molecules and aims to determine when and how these molecules interact.  This knowledge may then be used to understand, for example, how a disease such as cancer begins and spreads.  Jeff MacKeigan’s lab studies in particular enzymes: “kinases” are enzymes that add a phosphate chemical group onto a molecule in the cell, and “phosphatases” are enzymes that remove a phosphate group from a molecule.  Many of these enzymes have roles in the continued survival of the cell and in suppression of tumors.  The lab is studying genes and enzymes that promote cell survival and that, when mutated, may lead to the development of cancer.  A major tool in this work is the relatively new RNA interference approach to understanding gene function.