Apply By
August 14
Posting Number
2404
Research Group
Van Landeghem Lab
Location
NCSU- College of Veterinary Medicine
Mentor Name
Laurianne Van Landeghem
Number of Positions Available
3
Description
Our lab explores how adult multipotent intestinal stem cells are controlled by signals emanating from their microenvironment in health and diseases. We especially focus on cues derived from local neural cells that belong to the enteric nervous system, also called the second brain. We also study how nutritional disorders and nutritional interventions during development and adulthood affect intestinal stem cells and their communication with cells of the enteric nervous system. We currently pursue several projects. The first project is to test the impact of factors derived from enteric glial cells, which are the most abundant cell type of the enteric nervous system forming a widespread network infiltrating all layers of the gut wall, on intestinal stem cells, whose main functions are to continuously renew the monolayer of epithelial cells responsible for nutrient absorption and to regenerate the epithelium after injury. Our second objective is to assess how the initiation, the growth and the relapse of a colon tumor is affected by the crosstalk between enteric glial cells and cancer stem cells, which are cells of the tumor with increased tumorigenicity, chemoresistance and metastatic properties. The third one is to assess how a severe calorie restriction affects intestinal stem cell ability to regenerate the epithelium following infection with an enteric pathogen. Undergraduates will work with a mentor to work on their own projects and help other projects. Our lab routinely uses cell culture (primary and cell lines), fluorescence-activating cell sorting and flow cytometry, transgenic mouse models (stem cell-reporter and knock out models and immunodeficient models), microdissection (layers of the gut wall), immunofluorescence (wholemount, sections and 2D cultures), microscopy (fluorescence, confocal, real time, light sheet), biochemistry (western blot, ELISA) and molecular biology (RT-qPCR, siRNA/shRNA) techniques. We are currently looking for three strongly motivated undergraduates (major in biology or a closely related field preferred but not required). Contact: Laurianne Van Landeghem, PhD, lcvanlan@ncsu.edu
Required Prerequisites
None
Preferred Prerequisites
General Biology
Preferred Academic Year
Sophomore
Anticipated Start Date
August 21
Duration of Position
1+ year
Approximate Hours per Week
20h