Research 

Our overall goal is to understand how cells maintain homeostasis and respond to stress in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER).

As the entry point for the secretory pathway, the ER is responsible for folding and processing an enormous flux of proteins, yet it must maintain a strict quality control system to ensure that misfolded proteins do not move to the cell surface. Disruption in the balance between incoming proteins and the folding capacity of the ER, termed ER stress, occurs in many human diseases and is counteracted by a collection of stress response pathways called the Unfolded Protein Response.

We study the mechanisms of how cells respond to stress, how professional secretory cells like osteoblasts deal with the extra challenges associated with secreting large amounts of protein, and what happens when misfolded and disease-related proteins disrupt the balance of folding in the ER.