Prashanth Rangan, PhD

Prashanth Rangan, Ph.D, is an Associate Professor of Cell, Developmental, and Regenerative Biology and Pediatrics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. His team studies the genetic basis of female fertility using fruit fly oogenesis as a model system. Germ cells differentiate by undergoing meiosis to produce an oocyte. Once an oocyte fate is specified, the oocyte synthesizes mRNAs and proteins called the maternal contribution that are critical for initiating development of the early embryo. The Rangan lab research program asks the following questions pertaining to how germ cells transition into an oocyte:

How is germ cell entry into meiosis controlled?
How is the germ cell program terminated upon initiation of oocyte fate?
How are maternal mRNAs synthesized, selected, and regulated to initiate the next generation?
How does the surrounding soma regulate oocyte development?

The Rangan lab has discovered a programmatic transition that is required for germ cells to transition into an oocyte that we have termed germ cell to maternal transition (GMT).  We find that GMT includes a broad transcriptional reprogramming, specialized translation, and RNA degradation programs. We believe that defects in GMT could result in infertility. Thus, understanding this transition could underpin potential therapies for infertility.

Ongoing research interests include:

Determining transcriptional and post-transcriptional control of germ cell to maternal transition
Identifying the cue that initiates germ cell to maternal transition
Ascertaining the conservation of germ cell to maternal transition invertebrates

 

For more information, please visit the rangan lab website.