Lena Gunhaga

Biography

Professor Umeå Center for Molecular Medicine (UCMM)

Research Interest

Our research group is interested in the development of the peripheral nervous system and we are currently working on four major projects. 1) Early development of sensory plaques: Plaques are embryonic structures that cause parts of the peripheral nervous system. The odor, lens and ear plaques undergo complex morphological changes, eventually forming specific sensory organs. How this is controlled depends on which signals the cells are exposed at different times. We try to get detailed knowledge of which molecular mechanisms regulate these morphological changes. 2) Neurogenes: Neuronala stem cells divide, give rise to immature precursor cells that later develop into specific nerve cells. This new formation of nerve cells takes place throughout the life of three known areas in and near the brain, of which the fracture epithelium is a region. We use the fracture epithelium, which is an easily accessible structure and therefore a good model system, to study the signal mechanisms that control how stem and precursor cells develop into different types of nerve cells. 3) Early Evolution of Eye Structures: The lens and retina are two important structures within the eye. An interesting feature of the lens is that stem and precursor cells in the lens epithelium continually divide and mature into lens fiber cells throughout our lifetime. In the retina there are nerve cells that detect light and color. We investigate the signals that control the cells in the lens and the retina to develop into specific cell types. 4) EMT: Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is an important process that simplifies cell-binding proteins downregulation, enabling cells to leave epithelial tissue and migrate to other parts of the body. It is known that signal molecules that control EMT during fetal development are also active during wound healing, tissue repair and metastasis in cancer. Our challenge today is to understand how different signal molecules regulate EMT.