Biography

Dr. Sluss received her Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester in 1997.

p53 Stress Pathways in Cancer and Chronic Illness

The research goals of the Sluss lab are to have a better understanding of the pathophysiology of chronic illness to improve patient lives and ultimately reclaim health. Our lab’s research focus is to investigate chronic illnesses focusing on post-infection and chronic fatiguing illnesses. We propose these post-infection diseases share common pathway dysfunction that contributes to the disease. To this end, we are studying both pediatric and adult patients with diabetes and post-infectious associated/fatiguing chronic illness, including, but not limited to, Long-COVID, ME/CFS, FM, Gulf-War Syndrome and Hypermobility Syndrome.

In our work on to understand diabetes and metabolic control, we demonstrated a novel role of the tumor suppressor p53 in glucose homeostasis. We have applied genetic engineering and biochemistry to address this and other roles of p53 in metabolism.  We also study the overall disruption of metabolism in other chronic illnesses. We are examining common disrupted pathways to explain the overlapping symptoms in chronic illness, and to find unique pathway pathology for each disease. We are particularly interested in the role of the p53 stress pathway in these diseases.

The long term goal of the lab is to elucidate the pathology of chronic disease, to create mouse models to interrogate the pathology and provide a vehicle for therapeutic discovery.

Rotation Projects

Laboratory rotations are available to study p53 signaling pathway. Several projects are available, including studies of gene expression, the cell cycle, apoptosis, and tumor suppression. Targeted gene disruption approaches in mice combined with biochemical and molecular biology studies will be examined. Examples of potential rotation projects include the following:

1. Generate a triple mutant in p53 amino-terminal phosphorylation sites. The rotation would involve learning molecular biology techniques such as recombinant DNA purification, analysis, mutation, and subcloning.

2. Create cells from various genetically modified mice and analyze p53 function. The rotation would involve learning protein expression and purification techniques such as Western Blotting, protein purification, and FACS analysis.