Christopher V. E. Wright

Christopher Wright (Professor, Endowed Chair in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology) is Director of the Vanderbilt University Program in Developmental Biology. His undergraduate education in England (1977-1980) was at the University of Warwick, where he was trained in developmental biology under Alan Colman and Hugh Woodland. His D. Phil. in Biochemistry (University of Oxford, 1981-1984) with John Knowland was on purifying and biophysically characterizing steroid receptor proteins. From 1985-1990, Wright was lucky to do postdoctoral work with Eddy De Robertis on the just-discovered vertebrate homeobox genes. He published the first description of Pdx1, using immunodetection to show it labeling frog embryonic endoderm in the presumptive pancreas, plus adjacent duodenum, stomach and biliary system. Since joining Vanderbilt University in 1990, his lab has been amongst the leaders in studies of the transcriptional regulators of pancreas organogenesis. He has developed a translational focus on the differentiating ES cells towards pancreatic endocrine fates, towards cell-based therapies. His mouse genetic studies have determined that Pdx1 and Ptf1a are essential in multipotent progenitors of the early anlagen, with later roles as differentiation/maintenance factors in insulin-secreting beta cells (Pdx1), or enzyme-secreting acinar cells (Ptf1a). From ~160 scientific publications, selected discoveries include the first examples of lineage-switching triggered by inactivating or reducing the level of Pdx1 and Ptf1a, and the cross-referencing of these manipulations with effects on other stem/progenitor-regulatory factors. Recent information supports the novel idea that MPC in the early pancreatic epithelium are broadly communicating with each other to assess and establish their identity and subsequent behavior. Also, that the endocrine trigger factor, Ngn3, is expressed at low levels in cycling endocrine-biased progenitors, and at higher levels when cells commit to become endocrine precursors. Wright’s current goal is to move towards a high-resolution cell biological dissection of pancreas differentiation.