Dr. Jessica Treisman

Biography

Jessica E. Treisman is a Professor in the Department of Cell Biology and the Department of Ophthalmology at New York University. Her research focuses on cancer, developmental genetics, molecular, cellular, and translational neuroscience, cell signaling, and synapse formation. Using the visual system of the fruit fly Drosophila as a primary model, her work explores how cells signal and communicate positional information to direct appropriate developmental fates and to establish contacts with the correct partners. Through repetitive, meticulously organized structures within the Drosophila eye, her unbiased genetic screens have uncovered general mechanisms underlying cell communication. She has identified novel components of the Hedgehog, Wnt, Notch, and epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor pathways that are crucial for patterning the fly eye, which can become misregulated in human diseases such as cancer. Her investigations delve into how cell–cell signals translate into cell fate decisions, focusing on specific transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression. Furthermore, she studies the assembly of the visual system, particularly how neurons identify and form synapses with appropriate partners to create functional neural circuits.

Research Interests