MAP kinase signalling pathways are essential for all eukaryotic cells to sense and respond to environmental cues. They are critical for cells’ fitness and survival under stress conditions. Since the conserved MAP kinase modules control many cellular processes such as proliferation, differentiation, morphogenesis, as well as cell death, understanding the regulation of MAP kinase signalling will help to understand how these cellular processes are coupled to environmental stimuli.

Our research interests have been focused on studying the mechanisms of osmosensing and osmoregulation signal transduction pathways in model organism yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and related organisms; the function of membrane-mucine and associated molecules in the regulation of MAP kinase pathways governing cell differentiation and response to osmotic stresses; and the mechanisms controlling the pathway specificity and cross-talk among pathways with major focus on the scaffold/adaptor - kinase structure-function relationship of several MAP kinase pathways.