Professor Merzaban's research interests focus on understanding and optimizing the mechanism by which immune and stem cells exit the blood circulation to "home" to specific sites within the body. This process is mediated by sophisticated and coordinated steps controlled by multiple signaling and adhesion molecules, with key players being the selectins. Using a multidisciplinary approach that combines biochemical, biophysical and imaging techniques with in vivo mouse models, she is investigating some of the glycosyltransferases involved in controlling the biosynthesis of selectin ligands and how this contributes to the interplay of events necessary to allow cells to home to the affected site(s). Such studies are vital to understanding how the body responds to inflammation, to stem cell-based tissue engineering and other adoptive cell therapies.

Functional Biology