Dr. Michael J. Galko

Regular Member

The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Research Interests:

• Molecular genetics of tissue repair
• Drosophila genetics
• Cell migration
• Nociceptive (pain) sensitization
• Inflammation

Overview: Multicellular organisms have evolved a variety of tissue repair responses to cope with tissue damage. Some of these responses (wound closure) are aimed at restoring structure and function to the damaged tissue(s) while others (inflammation and nociceptive sensitization) are aimed at protecting the organism from further infection or injury. My laboratory is interested in identifying the elusive signals that initiate and terminate different aspects of the organismal tissue repair response, as well as the genes that are required to execute each specific response. Ultimately, we wish to understand in molecular detail how the activities of diverse damage-responsive cell types are coordinated in space and time to give a functional tissue repair program. To pursue these interests we have developed a variety of tissue repair/response assays in the highly genetically tractable model organism, Drosophila melanogaster and are focusing our efforts on three critical responses: epidermal wound closure, inflammation (recruitment of blood cells to the site of injury), and nociceptive (pain) sensitization (lowering of the threshold for sensing painful stimuli following injury). Given that tissue repair responses are an ancient survival mechanism, we expect that the functional importance of many of these genes we identify will be conserved between flies and vertebrates.

Tutorials may involve screening for new genes or characterizing those that have been identified during screening to date. Depending on the student’s interests, a tutorial in my laboratory would provide experience with Drosophila genetics, basic molecular biological methods, tissue dissection and immunohistochemistry, and fluorescent microscopic imaging of both live and fixed tissues.

Selected Publications:

Pokes, sunburn, and hot sauce: Drosophila as an emerging model for the biology of nociception. Im SH, Galko MJ. Dev Dyn. 2011 Sep 19. doi: 10.1002/dvdy.22737. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 21932321

Hedgehog signaling regulates nociceptive sensitization. Babcock DT, Shi S, Jo J, Shaw M, Gutstein HB, Galko MJ. Curr Biol. 2011 Sep 27;21(18):1525-33. Epub 2011 Sep 8. PMID: 21906949 [PubMed - in process]

Babcock DT, Galko MJ (2009) Two sides of the same coin no longer: Genetic separation of nociceptive sensitization responses.  Communicative and Integrative Biol. 2(6): 1-3.

Wu Y, Wang Y, Brock AR, Fish GS, Fujitani K, Ueda R, Galko MJ (2009) A blood-borne PDGF/VEGF-like ligand initiates wound-induced epidermal cell migration in Drosophila larvae. Current Biol. 19(17): 1473-1477.

Babcock DT, Landry C, Galko MJ (2009)  Cytokine signaling mediates UV-induced nociceptive sensitization in Drosophila larvae.  Current Biol. 19:  799-806.

Brock AR, Babcock DT, Galko MJ  (2008)  Active cop, passive cop:  Developmental stage-specific modes of wound-induced blood cell recruitment in Drosophila. Fly 2(6):  303-305.
 
Babcock DT, Brock A, Fish G, Wang Y, Perrin L, Krasnow MA, Galko MJ (2008) Circulating blood cells function as a surveillance system for damaged tissue in Drosophila larvae. PNAS 105(29): 10017-10022.

Stramer BM, Wood W, Galko M J, Redd M, Jacinto A, Parkhurst SM, Martin P (2005). Live imaging of wound inflammation in Drosophila embryos reveals key roles for small GTPase during in vivo cell migration. J Cell Biol. 168: 567-573.

Galko, MJ and Krasnow MA (2004) Cellular and genetic analysis of wound healing in Drosophila. PLoS Biology 2(8): e239.

Additional publications

Program Affiliation:

Program in Genes and Development

Program in Neuroscience