Arur Laboratory
Swathi Arur, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Areas of Research
- Developmental Biology
- miRNAs
- ncRNAs
- Nutrition
- Meiosis
- Cancer Metastasis
Welcome to the Arur Laboratory. We use multidisciplinary approaches and model systems with a goal to gain knowledge into three specific biological questions. We hope to understand the basis of (i) environmental signaling and its role in female and male fertility, (ii) signaling and control of birth defects, with specific focus on Ras pathway and (iii) signaling-based control of post-transcriptional regulation on cancer metastasis.
Research Focus
- Female and male germ cell development primarily in C. elegans
- Role of Ras signaling on embryonic morphogenesis in C. elegans
- Mechanisms of cancer progression and metastasis using mouse models and human cultured cells.
Research projects in the Arur Laboratory are focused on the following major areas:
- Unraveling the environmentally regulated mechanisms and molecules that control meiotic I progression in female germ cells. We use C. elegans as our model system for this work.
- Determining the role of small RNA pathways and post-transcriptional regulation during male and female germ cell development in C. elegans.
- Understanding the role of Ras signaling during embryonic morphogenesis in C. elegans.
- Identifying principles that regulate tumor progression upon signal-mediated regulation of post-transcriptional regulation rather than through the increase in mutational burden. We use mouse and cultured cells as models for this work.
Explore the various links on our web page and get to know us and our research. We welcome discussions; please contact us using our email address.
Meet the Team
From left to right: Shin-Yu Chen, Melany Puente, Deba Das, Xingxing Yan, Amelia Li, Han Bit Baek, Kenneth Trimmer, Nick Newkirk, Rares Drula, Tokiko Furuta, Lisa Watson, Swathi Arur (PI).
Arur Lab News
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March 19, 2025
Melany Puente, a PCCSM Postbaccalaureate Research Training Program participant working in the lab, will be going to the Genetics & Genomics Ph.D. program at Baylor College of Medicine!! A huge congratulations to Melany!!
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March 10, 2025
Congratulations to Dr. Deba Das on obtaining his first faculty position (assistant professor, tenure track) at William & Mary College.
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January 16, 2025
Read the perspective published in the journal Development.
Swathi, together with Duygu Ozpolot and Mansi Srivastava share their perspective on how widening, with increased context, to defining mechanisms in developmental biology will help the field as whole.
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January 9, 2025
Read the paper published in the journal Cell Reports.
Congratulations to Han Bit Baek on her investigative paper published in Cell Reports, where she determined the consequences of aberrant ERK activation in the oocyte on embryonic development!
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December 11, 2024
Congratulations to Jacob Ortega on winning the Brenner Thesis Award for 2025.