Hamaratoglu Dion Fisun

Biography

 isun Hamaratoglu received her PhD in 2007 from the Baylor College of Medicine for her work in the group of Georg Halder at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, USA. Her thesis work identified several upstream regulators, including the first receptor, of the Hippo tumor suppressor pathway. In 2008, she joined Markus Affolter’s laboratory at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, for her post-doctoral training, funded by HFSP, Marie Curie and Roche postdoctoral fellowships. In Basel, as part of the WingX.ch initiative, she established the fly wing as a model system to study scaling quantitatively and at a molecular level.

Research Interest

Over the years, developmental biologists have identified many molecules with key roles in pattern formation and size control. Several signaling pathways have emerged from this work including the Hippo and the Bone Morphogenetic Protein (BMP) pathways. Developing organs of all multi-cellular organisms, from flies to humans, grow and obtain their pattern simultaneously. How this coordination of growth and patterning is achieved is a long-standing question. Work in the Hamaratoglu Lab, using Drosophila genetics and quantitative approaches, aims to understand how the activities of the Hippo and BMP pathways are coordinated during development.