The Ovary

Molecular Regulation of Clearance by Nonprofessional Phagocytes in the Drosophila Ovary

Every day, hundreds of billions of cells die by different modalities to maintain homeostasis within the human body.  If an apoptotic cell corpse isn’t cleared away, it can proceed to a secondary necrotic state which can cause damage and disease. The aim of current studies is to determine what genes are differentially regulated in nonprofessional phagocytes thus transitioning them to a clearance state. We are also investigating the subcellular events of nurse cell death and clearance via confocal microscopy.