The mission of the Department of Molecular Biology is to conduct high-impact, internationally recognized research, and to educate and train the next generation of leaders in biomedical research. Research in the Department of Molecular Biology focuses on understanding mechanisms that control normal and abnormal cell growth and differentiation during development and disease. Many of the basic molecular mechanisms that control cell growth and differentiation are evolutionarily conserved in widely divergent organisms. Thus, elucidation of biochemical pathways in simple, genetically tractable organisms can have direct relevance to comparable processes in humans. investigators are using a variety of model organisms to uncover and characterize fundamental cellular, molecular, and genetic pathways that control proliferation, differentiation, and oncogenesis. Our faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students constitute a diverse group of investigators with overlapping expertise in different research areas relating to this common theme.