I'm FEI YI, a Ph.D. student in Merrill Lab. I graduated from Sun Yat-Sen (Zhongshan) University in China with B.S. in Biochemistry, 2004, and then recruited as a graduate student by the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics in UIC. In this lab, my research project is focused on elucidating the role of Tcf3 in mouse embryonic stem cell (mESC) self-renewal and pluripotency. More specifically, I'm interested in finding the direct targets of Tcf3 in regulating embryonic stem cell cell-cycle and in vitro proliferation. We have found that Tcf3 can directly bind to the promoter region of Nanog gene and repress it transcriptional activity, which causes an elevated expression of Nanog and a delayed differentiation in mESC. I'm currently working on elucidating the role of elevated Nanog in mediating defects observed in Tcf3 -/- mESC and finding Nanog-independent mechanism whereby Tcf3 restricts mESC proliferation.
