Short abstract: How does a single-celled egg give rise to distinct progenitor cells and tissues? What are the mechanisms and factors that control these processes, and what happens if these are disrupted? The Sampath Laboratory focuses on fundamental mechanisms that control development and differentiation of embryonic and germline progenitors, and the molecular mechanisms underlying these processes using the animal model of human development and disease, zebrafish, and cultured human cells as experimental systems. They use molecular genetic, genomic, live imaging, proteomic, and embryological approaches to determine the mechanisms that control progenitors in early embryos. Recent work from the Sampath group has identified RNA elements that regulate Nodal growth factor signalling in zebrafish embryos and cultured human cells, and the role of maternal RNA binding proteins in embryonic and germline development.

Biography: Karuna Sampath first encountered zebrafish as a doctoral student at Indiana State University in the US and has been smitten by these beautiful embryos since that time. As a postdoctoral fellow she identified a role for Nodal growth factor signals in left-right asymmetry, gastrulation and ventral neural tube patterning in frogs and fish. She was a group leader in Singapore from 2000 and Karuna joined Warwick in October 2013, where her group studies embryonic pattern formation, developmental signalling, and RNA-based regulation of embryonic and germline development.