Susan E. Mango, Ph.D

Professor of Oncological Sciences
Huntsman Cancer Institute, Room 4345
2000 Circle of Hope
Salt Lake city, UT 84112-5550
(801) 581-7633
Email: susan.mango@hci.utah.edu
Dr. Mango's Lab

The formation and physiology of organs is one of the fundamental mysteries of biology: how are multiple cell types specified within an organ? How is the development of organ precursors coordinated in space and time? And how do organs respond to changing environmental conditions throughout the life of an animal? We have chosen to study organ development and physiology using a simple organ, the C. elegans pharynx (or foregut), that nonetheless faces the same hurdles that confront organs in more complex animals. My research studies are focused on three topics:

- the transcriptional mechanisms that govern the progression of development over time;
- how the pharynx becomes an epithelial tube; cell polarity
- the role of the digestive tract during post-embryonic life; surviving starvation.