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Dr. Marko Horb
Dr. Marko Horb completed his undergraduate studies
in Cellular and Structural Biology with distinction at the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1998 he obtained his Ph.D. in
Cellular and Developmental Biology from the State University of
New York at Stony Brook, where he worked under the supervision of
Dr. Gerald Thomsen. His thesis dealt with the role of the T-box
gene in Xenopus embryogenesis. He then moved to England
to pursue his postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Prof. Jonathan
M.W. Slack at the University of Bath. His postdoctoral studies focused
on early endoderm patterning and pancreas development in Xenopus.
In 2003 he took up a position in Montreal at the Institut de Recherches
cliniques de Montreal, where his lab is focused on elucidating the
molecular signals responsible for specifying the various pancreatic
lineages.
Research in the Horb lab is focused on elucidating
the molecular signals responsible for cell fate specification in
the developing pancreas, with an aim towards reprogramming other
cell types into endocrine beta cells. The lab uses the amphibian,
Xenopus laevis, as its model organism to identify new genes
involved in pancreas development. In particular the lab has shown
that pancreatic transcription factors can be used to convert liver
cells into functional pancreatic beta cells. Using a transgenic
transdifferentiation assay in amphibian embryos he showed that Pdx1-VP16
is sufficient to convert liver to pancreas.
Links
- http://www.ircm.qc.ca/microsites/horb/en
- http://people.mcgill.ca/marko.horb
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