Alexei Degterev

Research/Areas of Interest

My lab focuses on the investigation of the molecular mechanisms, physiologic and pathophysiological roles of regulated cell death. Regulated cell death comes in many forms from apoptosis to a rapidly expanding spectrum of non-apoptotic necrosis-like cell death mechanisms. These processes play critical roles during development and in adult organism homeostasis, for example, helping eliminate infected, damaged or transformed cells. Conversely, alterations in regulated cell death pathways lead to a variety of human pathologies from acute traumas and ischemia-reperfusion injuries to cancer and chronic inflammatory diseases. The major aims of our work are to understand how key players in these pathways mediate activation of cell death in different contexts, especially as part of protective innate immune responses, and to develop chemical probes and drug leads that can be used to interrogate and therapeutically modulate cell death processes.