Nydia Tejeda Muñoz was awarded a UC MEXUS-CONACYT Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2016 and 2017, and also received the Monarch Award for the most outstanding proposal submitted to the competition.
Using the Xenopus embryo; her research explores how Glycogen Synthase Kinase 3 (GSK3) is regulated by Wnt signaling at apical-basal focal adhesion plaques, which are critical regulators of cell polarity. This model provides one of the best systems to understand Wnt signaling because the microinjection of canonical Wnt pathway components produces a spectacular duplication of the body axis, generating Siamese twins.
Finding a cross-talk between endocytosis of Wnt, sequestration of GSK3, and focal adhesions will be important and relevant for human cancers and cell biology. This research is being performed at UCLA under the mentorship of Distinguished Norman Sprague Professor of Biological Chemistry Dr. Edward M. De Robertis.
Dr. Tejeda is currently a member of CONACYT’s National System of Researchers and is an SNI level candidate. For additional information, Dr. Tejeda can be contacted at nydia.tejeda@gmail.com.
