Cara Gottardi, PhD
Associate Professor, Medicine, Pulmonary Division; Feinberg School of Medicine
Research Program
Cancer-Focused Research
Expertise in how cells adhere to each other, what constitutes dynamic versus static adhesion at the molecular level, and how the state of cell-cell adhesion is interpreted by the nucleus to control gene expression and cellular differentiation, largely through modulation of Wnt/catenin signaling. These processes are highly relevant to human health and disease because the proteins comprising the major macromolecular adhesion complex on cells (known as the cadherin/catenin complex) are associated with numerous diseases ranging from proliferative/invasive conditions like cancer and fibrosis to chronic conditions such as asthma. I have experience coordinating projects with Drosophila geneticists, biochemists/crystallographers, biophysicists and physician scientists with access to patient sample data sets for these investigations.