Welcome to the Charest Lab!
In the laboratory of Dr. Pascale Charest at the University of Arizona, we study how cells migrate in response to external chemical cues (chemoattractants), a process (chemotaxis) that is important to normal physiology and that is also implicated in the onset and progression of diseases such as cancer metastasis. Metastasis, the migration of cancer cells away from the primary tumor to other parts of the body, is by far the major cause of death from cancer. Yet, most anti-cancer drugs inhibit only cancer cell proliferation. One main reason for the lack of efficient anti-metastasis therapy is our lack of understanding of what promotes tumor cell migration and invasion. Our goal is to identify key, conserved intracellular signaling pathways and molecular mechanisms that control cell migration to guide the development of therapeutic strategies preventing the spread of cancer. For this, we work with the model organism Dictyostelium discoideum as well as normal and transformed human cells, and we use collaborative, interdisciplinary approaches that include cellular, molecular, biochemical, biophysical and computational methods.
Charest Lab News
June 2022
Welcome to our summer High School KEYS intern Alex Lewandrowski. We are really happy to be able to host you in person this summer!
Congratulations to Helena Woroniecka, who was awarded a 2022-2023 Biological Chemistry Program T32 fellowship!
May 2022
Congratulations to our three graduates: Avani Kumar (B.Sc. Biochemistry), Isa Mundo (B.Sc. Molecular and Cellular Biology), and Shon Alimukhamedov (B.Sc. Molecular and Cellular Biology)! We celebrated with a painting lab party!
Avani worked with graduate student Alyssa Werner, Isa worked with Mollie Wiegand, and Shon worked with Stephen Smith. They all greatly contributed to our research efforts and their work will be included in upcoming publications. We will really miss you and wish you all the best in your future endeavors!
January 2022
Graduate student Stephen Smith had his baby boy (after 2 girls!), Henry Winston, on Jan. 31. Congratulations!
September 2021
Graduate student Alyssa Werner had her little baby girl, Aviana June, on Sept. 5. Aviana came into the world 7 weeks early, she was in a hurry! Mommy and baby are doing really well. Congratulations to the new parents!
Welcome to our summer High School KEYS intern Alex Lewandrowski. We are really happy to be able to host you in person this summer!
Congratulations to Helena Woroniecka, who was awarded a 2022-2023 Biological Chemistry Program T32 fellowship!
May 2022
Congratulations to our three graduates: Avani Kumar (B.Sc. Biochemistry), Isa Mundo (B.Sc. Molecular and Cellular Biology), and Shon Alimukhamedov (B.Sc. Molecular and Cellular Biology)! We celebrated with a painting lab party!
Avani worked with graduate student Alyssa Werner, Isa worked with Mollie Wiegand, and Shon worked with Stephen Smith. They all greatly contributed to our research efforts and their work will be included in upcoming publications. We will really miss you and wish you all the best in your future endeavors!
January 2022
Graduate student Stephen Smith had his baby boy (after 2 girls!), Henry Winston, on Jan. 31. Congratulations!
September 2021
Graduate student Alyssa Werner had her little baby girl, Aviana June, on Sept. 5. Aviana came into the world 7 weeks early, she was in a hurry! Mommy and baby are doing really well. Congratulations to the new parents!
Charest lab May 2021.
