|
Home
>
In the News >
Exploring Life
In the News
As published in
UConn Health Center Magazine, Summer 2006.
Exploring Life
By Patrick Keefe
 |
|
|
Brenton Graveley studies
planarians to try to identify genes that control
the regeneration process. |
Brenton Graveley, Ph.D., believes he may have
the perfect job. “Basically, I try to figure out how life
works,” says Graveley, an associate professor of genetics and
developmental biology at the Health Center.
“Research is exciting,” he says. “Every day is
completely different. Sometimes, you think you know how
something works. You do an experiment and learn it’s completely
different from what you expected. When that happens, it’s even
more exciting.”
He is interested primarily in how genes are
“turned on” and “turned off” at different times or in different
cell types, and the effect on the development and function of an
organism. He investigates the process of alternative splicing,
the way in which one gene can give rise to multiple proteins.
The process holds important consequences for the development of
the organism.
Graveley also studies planarians, tiny worms
that can completely regenerate themselves. Cut off a piece and
it becomes a new worm. The entire organism is filled with stem
cells so the work naturally becomes the study of stem cells.
“We’re working to identify the genes that control the
regeneration process,” he says.
Graveley came to the Health Center in 1999, the
first faculty member hired by Marc Lalande, Ph.D., chairman of
the newly created Department of Genetics and Developmental
Biology.
A graduate of the University of Colorado,
Boulder, Graveley did graduate work at the University of Vermont
and post-doctoral work at Harvard.
His seminal moment came when, as a freshman
journalism major, a school computer error placed him in a
molecular biology class taught by David Prescott, a member of
the National Academy of Sciences. The class was so intriguing
that Graveley was hooked.
“From day one, I fell in love with that class,”
he says. “I never knew molecular biology existed; and at the end
of that semester, I was doing research in Prescott’s lab. From
freshman year, I knew I wanted to be a molecular biology
professor,” he adds, “and here I am.”
In addition to research and teaching, Graveley
is a member of the Health Center’s research recruitment
committee and is excited about his role in shaping the
institution’s academic future.
“The goal of our lab is not to cure a specific
disease, but to understand how life works,” he says. “That
information is absolutely necessary to try to cure human
diseases, and it is only discoverable through basic research.” |