Cell  signaling: mechanism, function & structure

Page Laboratory, Department of Cell Biology, UConn Health

Research Program

How we sense and react to our environment is communicated in the cell by vast networks of highly dynamic, interacting proteins. These interactions are regulated in both space and time, and it is this tight regulation that allows signals from outside of the cell to be rapidly and precisely transmitted to the nucleus leading to the appropriate, and healthy, cellular response. We integrate structural biology, cell biology, genetics and biochemistry in order to understand how these signals in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes are communicated in the cell at atomic resolution. 

Our laboratory has made fundamental advances in (1) understanding how toxin-antitoxin systems and penicillin binding proteins drive antibiotic resistance in bacteria and (2) elucidating the molecular code that controls serine/threonine phosphatase activity and specificity in human cells. We are leveraging these discoveries to develop novel chemical and genetic modulators of these key enzymes that can be used both as experimental tools and, ultimately, drugs. In particular, we have made key discoveries that are leading to the development of safer immunosuppressants and new phosphatase-based approaches for the treatments of Cancer, Alzheimer's disease and diabetes.


7/2024: Welcome Ms. Angela Cupo to the UCHC graduate program

7/2024: Congratulations Ms. Tvesha Parikh, on selection as a 2024 Connecticut Woman of Innovation,  Collegian Innovation and Leadership finalist 

05/2024: Dr. Rebecca Page elected to the Connecticut Academy of Science & Technology, class of 2024

5/2024: Congratulations Dr. Margaret Vos, on the successful defense of your doctoral dissertation!

01/2024: Congratulations Dr. Sathish Padi, Ms. Margaret Vos and Ms. Rachel Godek, on your new paper published in NATURE!