Welcome to the Dr. Michael Pierce Lab!

Michael Pierce
Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Director of UGA Cancer Center

Research interests: glycosyltransferase,
tumor cell metastasis, cell-matrix interaction,
Protein glycosylation, gene/cDNA isolation
and characterization, oligosaccharide
processing, enzyme and lectin
structure/function, glycoprotein expression, Glycomics and glyco-Bioinformatics
Link to NCRR Integrated Resource for Biomedical glycomics

Pierce Lab, October 2008

Top Row:
JinKyu Lee, Pam Kirby, Gerardo Alvarez-Manilla, Nate Mosley, Erika Martinez, Sam Basu, Abigail Cline, HuabeiGuo

Bottom Row:
Vicki Stickney, Karen Abbot, Heather Johnson

Our lab investigates how cell surface glycans regulate the function and signaling of cell adhesion receptors like integrins and cadherins during oncogenesis and tumor progression. Recent result from the lab demonstrated that a cancer-specific glycosylation change on N-cadherin modulates receptor clustering and inhibits cell-cell adhesion and signal tranduction mediated by N-cadherin (Guo et al, JBC, 2003). We also utilize mass spectrometry as a tool to explore site-specific changes of N-glycosylation on target glycoproteins, including GnT-V and b1 integrin.

In 2003, our group received a 6.5 million dollar fund from the NIH for the establishment of a NCRR Integrated Resource for Biomedical Glycomics, for which our team of investigators will use Kinetic PCR and mass spectrometry to determine how stem cells regulate their cell surface glycosylation patterns at each stage of differentiation. This project was renewed in 2008

315 Riverbend Rd. #3059-3060
Complex Carbohydrate Research Center
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
University of Georgia
Athens, Georgia 30602-4712
Office: (706) 542-1702
Lab: (706) 542-1701
Secretary: (706) 542-1760
Fax: (706) 542-1759
Email: hawkeye@uga.edu

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