Anthony De Tomaso
University of California-Santa Barbara, CA·Biology
Stem cells can rest in a dormant state for long periods and later wake up. In long-lived animals, this lets tissue stem cells stay ready to repair damage.
- Fields
Biology
Ecology & Evolution
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
stem cell dormancy
quiescence
stem cell niche
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Establish Botrylloides diegensis as a model in which stem cell dormancy can be switched on by cold, heat, starvation or low oxygen and reversed, using live imaging of the vascular mat that survives.
- Separate the roles of pluripotent stem cells and their niche in whole body regeneration by isolating stem cells with FACS, labeling and transplanting them, and selectively removing them.
- Dissect the molecular basis of allorecognition specificity, the self versus non-self distinction, in Botryllus and test how it is conserved with vertebrate immunity.
- Define an autocrine signaling mechanism needed for germline stem cell homing and its role in competition between stem cells for niche space.
- Use rescue and lineage-tracing assays to follow how a single germline stem cell regenerates an entire body, and use this to create genetically modified Botryllus lines.
More about the research
In cancer, dormant stem cells can survive treatment and wake years later to form metastases, which cause most cancer deaths. Studying this process has been hard because few systems let researchers switch dormancy on and off at will. Both projects use small colonial sea animals related to vertebrates, Botrylloides diegensis and Botryllus. In these animals, stem cells drive transplantation reactions, compete with one another and rebuild whole bodies. The lab works where immunology, stem cell biology and regeneration meet.
Why it matters
Dormant cancer stem cells can survive therapy and seed metastases years later. A system in which dormancy can be switched on and off may reveal targets for cancer recurrence and regenerative medicine. The work on allorecognition and competing stem cells could inform how bone marrow transplants are accepted or rejected, how cancer cells outcompete normal cells, and how germ cell tumors arise.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
E. Jane Hubbard
New York University, NY·Biology
Identify the molecular mechanisms by which insulin/IGF-like signaling acts from other tissues to drive age-related decline of the one-cell germline stem cell niche in C. elegans.
Addolorata Pisconti
Stony Brook University, NY·Biology
Define how the muscle stem cell niche, including its cells, extracellular matrix and soluble factors, is remodeled after injury in mice lacking each neutrophil serine protease or all three combined.
Lauren Anllo
East Carolina University, NC·Biology
Identify the signaling intermediaries that connect Slit and FGF signals from visceral muscle to expression of islet, a gene-regulating protein that directs niche cell movement, in the Drosophila embryonic testis.
The school
University of California-Santa Barbara: 17 labs on PI Pages, $303M a year on research, 403 research doctorates a year.
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