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Spencer Lab Logo and Motto: Where outliers become discoveries
Cell systems cover 2025
Celebrating the publication of our collaboration with Pfizer on adaptation to CDK2 inhibition! Arora et al. Cell 2023

Celebrating the publication of our collaboration with Pfizer on adaptation to CDK2 inhibition! Arora et al. Cell 2023

Celebrating the publication of our collaboration with Pfizer on adaptation to CDK2 inhibition! Arora et al. Cell 2023

Celebrating the publication of our collaboration with Pfizer on adaptation to CDK2 inhibition! Arora et al. Cell 2023

Spencer Lab on a walk during 2022 Lab Retreat in Keystone Colorado. Left to right: (Top) Tim Hoffman, Claire Armstrong, Forrest Shirley, Riley Ill, Varuna Nangia, Victor Passanisi, Yao Rong, (Bottom) Sabrina Spencer, Bri Fernandez, Lotte Watts

Spencer Lab on a walk during 2022 Lab Retreat in Keystone Colorado

Left to right: (Top) Tim Hoffman, Claire Armstrong, Forrest Shirley, Riley Ill, Varuna Nangia, Victor Passanisi, Yao Rong, (Bottom) Sabrina Spencer, Bri Fernandez, Lotte Watts

Spencer Lab Retreat August 2022. Left to right: (Top) Yao Rong, Scott Lin, Varuna Nangia, Claire Armstrong, Victor Passanisi, Tim Hoffman; (Bottom) Riley Ill, Bri Fernandez, Sabrina Spencer, Lotte Watts

Spencer Lab Retreat August 2022

Left to right: (Top) Yoa Rong, Scott Lin, Varuna Nangia, Claire Armstrong, Victor Passanisi, Tim Hoffman; (Bottom) Riley Ill, Bri Fernandez, Sabrina Spencer, Lotte Watts

Celebrating the acceptance of Mingwei's paper, "Temporal integration of mitogen history in mother cells controls proliferation of daughter cells," to Science, published April 2.

Congratulations!

Celebrating the acceptance of Mingwei's paper, "Temporal integration of mitogen history in mother cells controls proliferation of daughter cells." Min M, Rong Y, Tian C, Spencer SL. (2020). Science. 

Spencer Lab lab members as of June 2018

Spencer Lab 2018

Members:  Alex (left), Mansi, Humza, Sabrina, Chengzhe, Claire, Jordan, Mingwei, Justin, Yao, Chen, and Nikki.

MCF10A cells expressing a CDK2 sensor (green) and mCherry-tagged Histone 2B (red); cells have been immunostained for phosphorylated Rb at Serine 807/811 (blue).

MCF10A cells expressing a CDK2 sensor (green) and mCherry-tagged Histone 2B (red); cells have been immunostained for phosphorylated Rb at Serine 807/811 (blue).

Spencer Lab members on our 2019 Lab Retreat to Keystone

Spencer Lab Members at Spencer Lab Retreat to Keystone, Colorado in August 2019.

Top to bottom: Iain, Justin, Yao, Mingwei, Sabrina, Chen, Jordan, Claire, Humza, Tim, and Chengzhe

Comparison of cell tracking performance from Chengzhe's paper "EllipTrack: A Global Cell-Tracking Pipeline for Hard-to-Track Cells."

Comparison of cell tracking performance from Chengzhe's paper "EllipTrack: A Global Cell-Tracking Pipeline for Hard-to-Track Cells." Tian C, Yang C, Spencer SL. (2019). bioRxiv.

Spencer Lab Members: Justin (left), Mansi, Mingwei, Claire, Sabrina, Chen, Chengzhe, Yao

Spencer Lab Members: Justin (left), Mansi, Mingwei, Claire, Sabrina, Chen, Chengzhe, and Yao.

scRNA-seq and RNA FISH revealed elevated expression of Cdc42ep1 in escapees.

scRNA-seq and RNA FISH revealed elevated expression of Cdc42ep1 in escapees in Chen's paper, "Rapidly induced drug adaptation mediates escape from BRAF inhibition in single melanoma cells." Yang C, Tian C, Hoffman TE, Jacobsen NK, Spencer SL. (2019). bioRxiv.

Using an mCitrine-p21 fusion protein in order to monitor p21 levels compared to CDK2 activity in cells in transient quiescence.

Using an mCitrine-p21 fusion protein in order to monitor p21 levels compared to CDK2 activity in cells in transient quiescence. Moser J, Miller I, Carter D, Spencer SL. (2018). "Control of the Restriction Point by Rb and p21." PNAS. 

Spencer lab members on a hike near Dillon, Colorado. Left to right: Mingwei, Tim, Sabrina, Claire, Justin, Humza, Yao, Iain, and Jordan.

Spencer lab members on a hike near Dillon, Colorado in August 2019

Left to right: Mingwei, Tim, Sabrina, Claire, Justin, Humza, Yao, Iain, and Jordan. 

The Spencer Lab making dinner during the 2019 Lab Retreat in Keystone, Colorado.

The Spencer Lab making dinner at retreat to Keystone, Colorado in August 2019

Left to Right: Yao Rong, Minwei Min, Jordan Schneider, Humza Ashraf, Claire Armstrong, Chen Yang, Tim Hoffman, Justin Moser.

2021 Lab Picnic

2021 Lab Picnic

Welcome to the Spencer Lab!

Research in the lab is focused on understanding how signaling events control cell fate.  Studying these processes in single cells reveals remarkable cell-to-cell variability in response to stimuli, even among genetically identical cells in a uniform environment.  We seek to understand the sources and consequences of this heterogeneity in the cellular response to stimuli.  The stimuli we study include growth factors, cell stress, and targeted cancer therapeutics.  To do this, we develop genetically encoded fluorescent sensors for signaling events of interest.  We then use long-term live-cell microscopy and cell tracking to quantify the dynamics of upstream signals and link them to cell fate (proliferation, quiescence, apoptosis, differentiation).  Our long-term goal is to understand the normal mechanistic functioning of signaling pathways that control proliferation, to understand how these signals go awry in cancer, and eventually to alter the fate of individual cells.