Jia L. Song

Education

• B.S. - Cornell University
  
• Ph.D. - University of Washington
• Postdoctoral - Brown University

Teaching

• BISC 415/615 Developmental Biology
• BISC 412 Developmental & Molecular Lab

Research Interests

The potential for forming a new organism begins at fertilization, when the sperm meets the egg. Across species from the worm to the human, development of the newly fertilized egg to a juvenile or an adult requires the careful regulation of cell growth, differentiation, and morphogenesis. Different cell types make different sets of proteins, even when their genomes are identical. What makes each cell type unique is a direct result of differential gene expressions mediated by transcription factors and signaling molecules in response to chemicals and proteins in the cell and the environment. Dysregulation of important genes involved in developmental decisions can lead to human diseases. Our research addresses one of the fundamental questions in developmental biology: How are genes regulated during early development?

My laboratory investigates the regulatory roles of microRNAs (miRNAs) in early development. miRNAs are a class of non-coding RNA molecules that have recently been discovered to repress gene expressions in animal cells. miRNAs are critical for many aspects of life, including the development of an organism and physiological functions of cells and tissues.

Current Projects

1. Understand the RNA-mediated regulation of cell division.
Cell division is a critical biological process used by all organisms. Since failures in chromosome segregation correlates with cancer and cause birth defects and human diseases, a deeper understanding of cell division is paramount. We focus on two types of RNAs: the messenger RNA (mRNA) that carries the instructions from the DNA to make proteins, and microRNAs (miRNAs) that regulate mRNA expression. During the early cleavage stage embryo, one of the evolutionarily conserved hallmarks is that the embryos undergo rapid cell divisions. We have recently documented that transcripts that encode proteins involved in mitosis have cell cycle-dependent localization and are exquisitely localized to the mitotic spindles of early cleavage embryos (Remsburg et al., 2023). We aim to understand how transcripts are transported to the mitotic spindles and the functional significance of the subcellular localization of miRNAs and their targets during different phases of the cell cycle.​

Research Group

Current

• Malcolm​ ​​Ar​nott - Ph.D.

• Michael Te​sta - Ph.D.
• Christopher Saul - Ph.D.

• Je​​​​s​sica Benito - Undergraduate Researcher​