Welcome to the Annes Laboratory

High-Throughput Molecular Endocrinology

Objective

We are developing methods to therapeutically control endocrine cell growth by understanding the molecular mechanisms that impair adaptive (diabetes) and drive maladaptive (transformed) cell behavior. Our goal is to uncover novel therapeutic strategies to prevent and treat disorders of cell growth. In particular, we study two diseases that present opposite sides of the same coin:

Diabetes: A disease of deficient regeneration of insulin-producing beta-cells. 

Hereditary Paraganglioma and Pheochromocytoma (hPPGL): An inherited tumor syndrome of excess cell growth that models the aberrant metabolic behavior of cancer. 

Strategy

We deploy innovative high-throughput in vivo and in vitro discovery platforms to uncover the molecular pathways that control cell growth, regeneration and survival. Our multidisciplinary strategy of cell, molecular and chemical biology, mouse and human genetics, medicinal chemistry and computational modeling is uniquely suited to walk the essential pathway from compound discovery to preclinical validation of new therapies.