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Juan
LARRAIN Ph.D. Associate Scientist, FONDAP in Biomedicine. Assistant Professor, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
Short profile: Dr. Larraín is a young Chilean Cell and
Developmental biologist. For his Doctoral work he studied
the function of Proteoglycans in muscle differentiation. In
1999 his Ph.D. thesis was awarded two special prizes; the
Award of the Chilean Society for Cell Biology and Chilean
Academy of Science Award. During 1998-2002 he worked as a
postdoctoral fellow and then as a Research Associate at the
laboratory of Dr. Edward M. De Robertis at the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute in UCLA. There
he studied the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Vertebrate
Development. During his career he has been awarded with prestigious
Fellowships like Fundación Andes Doctoral Fellowship and The
Pew Latinoamerican Postdoctoral Fellowship. Recently he has
joined the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile as an
Associate Professor where he is starting his own independent
research.
RESEARCH: Dr. Larrain’s research on Developmental
Biology is centered around trying to understand the molecular
mechanisms that regulate patterning, determination and differentiation
of specific tissues during early development of the vertebrate
embryo.
ACADEMIC POSITIONS: 2000-2002 Research Associate at the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute at UCLA. 2002- Associate Professor,
Faculty of Biological Sciences,
Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Pontificia Universidad
Católica de Chile
PUBLICATIONS:
16
original articles.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:
Larrain,
J., Cizmeci-Smith, G., Troncoso, V., Stahl,
R.C., Carey, D.J., and Brandan, E. (1997). Syndecan-1 expression
is down-regulated during myoblast terminal differentiation.
Modulation by growth factors and retinoic acid. J. Biol. Chem.
272, 18418-24.
Larrain,
J.*, Bachiller, D.*, Lu, B.*, Agius, E., Piccolo,
S., and De Robertis, E.M. (2000) BMP-binding modules in chordin:
a model for signalling regulation in the extracellular space.
Development 127, 821-30.
Oelgeschlager,
M.*, Larrain, J.*, Geissert,
D., and De Robertis, E.M. (2000). The evolutionarily conserved
BMP-binding protein Twisted gastrulation promotes BMP signalling.
Nature 405, 757-63.
De
Robertis, E. M., Larrain, J., Oelgeschlager, M., Wessely,
O. (2000). The establishment of Spemann’s organizer and patterning
of the vertebrate embryo. Nature Review Genetics 1, 171-8.
Larrain,
J.*, Oelgeschlager, M.*, Keptura, N.I., Reversade,
B., Zakin, L. and De Robertis E.M. (2001) Proteolysis of
Chordin as a switch for the dual activities of Twisted gastrulationon
BMP. Development 128, 4439-4447. |
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