Margaret T. Fuller

Honors and Awards

• Member, National Academy of Sciences (2008-present)
• Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006-present)
• Reed-Hodgson Professor, Human Biology (2004-present)

Professional Education

Postdoctoral Advisees

Catherine Baker , Chenggang Lu , Navdar Sever , Allyson Spence , Shrividhya Srinivasan

Graduate & Fellowship Program Affiliations

• Cancer Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Genetics

Current Research Interests

A central focus of our work concerns the mechanisms that regulate stem cell behavior. The central characteristic of adult stem cells is their long-term capacity to divide as relatively undifferentiated precursors while also producing daughter cells that initiate differentiation. Understanding the mechanisms that regulate stem cell specification and the choice between stem cell self-renewal and differentiation is crucial for realizing the potential of stem cells for regenerative medicine. We are using the Drosophila male germ line as a powerful genetic system to identify both the cell autonomous determinants and the extrinsic cell-cell interactions that govern stem cell specification, self-renewal, and differentiation. One of the great advantages of this system is that stem cells can be studied in situ, in the context of their normal support cells. Our results indicate that signals from surrounding somatic support cells specify asymmetric division of male germ line stem cells by inducing one daughter cell to self-renew stem cell identity while directing the other daughter cell to differentiate. A second focus of our work concerns how the developmental program directs cellular differentiation. Fundamental cellular functions like the cell cycle, the cytoskeleton, and the general transcription machinery are remodelled during development to give rise to specialized cell types. We investigate the mechanisms that regulate and mediate cellular differentiation during male gametogenesis in Drosophila. Our current work focuses on three areas. 1) We are investigating the mechanisms that regulate the unique program of gene expression that takes place in primary spermatocytes in preparation for the dramatic morphogenetic events of spermatid differentiation. We have discovered that both progression of the meiotic cell cycle and expression of spermatid differentiation genes are regulated by tissue specific versions of the general PolII transcription machinery. In addition, our work...

Publications

• Asymmetric inheritance of mother versus daughter centrosome in stem cell division. Yamashita YM, Mahowald AP, Perlin JR, Fuller MT. Science. 2007; 315 (5811): 518-21
• Tissue-specific TAFs counteract Polycomb to turn on terminal differentiation. Chen X, Hiller M, Sancak Y, Fuller MT. Science. 2005; 310 (5749): 869-72
• Orientation of asymmetric stem cell division by the APC tumor suppressor and centrosome. Yamashita YM, Jones DL, Fuller MT. Science. 2003; 301 (5639): 1547-50
• Stem cell self-renewal specified by JAK-STAT activation in response to a support cell cue. Kiger AA, Jones DL, Schulz C, Rogers MB, Fuller MT. Science. 2001; 294 (5551): 2542-5
• Somatic support cells restrict germline stem cell self-renewal and promote differentiation. Kiger AA, White-Cooper H, Fuller MT. Nature. 2000; 407 (6805): 750-4