Dr. Jeffrey Randall is the director of our Microarray Biotechnology Center and a Postdoctoral fellow with the Renal Division at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He brings to our facility years of expertise as a developmental biologist with a strong background in molecular and cellular biology and protein chemistry. His research focus is to determine the biological mechanisms and pathways that cells utilize in response to stress. These biological and environmental stresses include oxidative and osmotic stresses as well as those that result in neurodegeneration. One model system for osmotic stress is chronic hypertonicity, more specifically how renal cells respond to osmotic insult. A model for neurodegeneration is Alzheimer's disease for which, he is collaborating with Dr. Jack Rogers of Massachusetts General Hospital and delineating the translational regulation of the amyloid precursor protein.

To determine which key molecules and genetic pathways are involved in these two systems, Dr. Randall is utilizing DNA microarray technology. The goal of which is to profile genetic responses at the molecular level and determine which genes and pathways (biosynthetic or regulatory) are involved. By utilizing gene ratios as obtained by comparing expression patterns of thousands of genes at once, a diagnostic tool can be developed to stage a given disease as well as measure treatment efficacy.