Ankur Saxena, PhD

We combine live imaging and quantitative analysis of multicellular dynamics with genetic and molecular perturbation in zebrafish embryos to determine how stem cells form sensory neurons and how pediatric cancer cells survive and metastasize. These seemingly disparate biological processes in fact overlap significantly in their mechanisms and behavior, and understanding those commonalities in vivo could provide new therapeutically-relevant insights into human developmental defects and cancer metastasis. Please see www.saxenalab.com for further details.