Luiza de Oliveira Saad, Ph.D.

Research

In the Reddien lab, I will explore the mechanisms that guide regeneration in a shell-less mollusk called a nudibranch. In animals that can regrow lost body parts, the cells that are closest to the site of amputation proliferate to replace the tissue that is missing. In the process, these cells must erase the “positional information” that tells them where they normally reside and establish a new set of molecular signals that direct them to generate new tissue at the site where it’s needed. Using cutting-edge techniques in cell and molecular biology and single-cell sequencing, I will characterize the signals that nudibranch cells use to establish their normal positions in the adult body and then determine how these signals change during regeneration. In particular, I will assess whether the reprogramming process is progressive, with proliferating cells adopting the positional pattern of the next nearest border region as they replace the lost tissue, or whether the pioneer cells assume the pattern of the region that is farthest away, leaving other cells to “fill in” the missing tissue in between. My work will provide a foundation for understanding this process in animals and could lead to advances in regenerative medicine in humans.