Prof. David Sprinzak

The development of a multicellular organism is a truly fantastic process. How genetically identical cells differentiate into distinct cell types in an accurate and reproducible manner remains one of the most important questions in biology. The long term goal of the lab is to elucidate the design principles of complex developmental programs underlying organized differentiation patterns. In particular, we are interested in

1. How the properties of intercellular signaling pathways contribute to the development of tissues and organs.
2. How do cellular mechanics and cellular morphology affect, and are affected by, regulatory processes within cells and signalingbetween cells.
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To address these questions we use an interdisciplinary approach combining synthetic biology, quantitative imaging techniques, micropatterning technology, and mathematical models.

Projects in the lab include:

a.       Elucidating the interplay between Notch signaling and cell morphology

b.      Understanding the mechanisms underlying Planar Cell Polarity

c.       Studying the emergence of organization in the development of the mammalian inner ear

To read more please go to the lab website: www.sprinzaklab.com

Yaron T., Cordova Y., Sprinzak D.

Juxtacrine Signaling Is Inherently Noisy.

Biophys. J. (2014) vol. 107, Issue 10, Pages 2417–2424

LeBon L, Lee TV, Jafar-Nejad H, Sprinzak D, Elowitz MB.

Fringe proteins modulate Notch-ligand cis and trans interactions to specify signaling states. Elife. 2014 Sep 25;3. doi: 10.7554/eLife.02950.

Formosa-Jordan P, Sprinzak D.

Modeling Notch signaling: a practical tutorial.

Methods Mol Biol. 2014;1187:285-310. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-1139-4_22.

A. Yaron, D. Sprinzak.

The cis side of juxtacrine signaling: a new role in the development of the nervous system.

Trends Neurosci. 2012 Apr;35(4):230-9. doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2011.12.003;

O. Shaya, D. Sprinzak.

From Notch signaling to fine-grained patterning: Modeling meets experiments.

Curr. Opin. Genet. Dev. 2011 Aug 19. Review

D. Sprinzak, A. Lakhanpal, L. LeBon, J. Garcia-Ojalvo, M. B. Elowitz.

Mutual inactivation of Notch receptors and ligands facilitates developmental patterning

PLoS Comput. Biol. 2011 Jun;7(6)

D. Sprinzak, A. Lakhanpal, L. LeBon, L. A. Santat, M. E. Fontes, G. A. Anderson, J. Garcia-Ojalvo, M. B. Elowitz.

Cis interactions between Notch and Delta generate mutually exclusive signaling states

Nature. 2010 May 6;465(729)

D. Sprinzak and M. Elowitz.

Reconstruction of genetic circuits

Nature 438(7067), 443-8 (2005) Review.