Associate Professor of Biology; Associate Chair, Cell & Molecular Biology
Current Research
Research in the Bradham lab is focused on understanding secondary (dorsal-ventral) axis specification and skeletal patterning in the sea urchin. We are interested in producing a systems-level description for these processes. Sea urchin, a non-chordate deuterostome, is an ideal model organism for systems-level developmental studies. Genomic analysis has revealed that sea urchins share the diversity of signaling and transcriptional molecules with vertebrates, including humans, but lack the complexity associated with a duplicated genome. Further, sea urchin larvae are morphologically quite simple, being composed of approximately 15 cell types, and thus are accessible to detailed analysis of cell specification and cell-cell communication mechanisms. Finally, the use of gene regulatory networks to model developmental processes was pioneered in urchin, providing a strong precedent for this work. The lab is focused primarily on two projects: understanding how the dorsal-ventral axis is specified, and how the larval skeleton is patterned. We are pursuing these projects through a combination of molecular biology, biochemistry, cell biology, computational modeling, and systems biology approaches.
Recent Publications
- Lion AT, Bodine SM, McCutcheon KR, Ghogale M, Chandragiri S, Abayawardena D, Shrestha BD, Descoteaux AE, Alvarez KE, Balkman JA, Cocke B, Wikramanayake AH, Schlezinger J, Wong JW, Prakash VN, and CA Bradham. 2025. PFAS Compounds PFOA and Gen X are Teratogenic to Sea Urchin Embryos. Dev. Bio. 525:139-154
- Descoteaux AE, Radulovic M, Alburi D, and CA Bradham, 2025. CMTM4 is an adhesion modulator that regulates skeletal patterning and primary mesenchyme cell migration in sea urchin embryos. Dev. Biol. 521:85-95
- Thomas CF, Hawkins DY, Skidanova V, Marrujo SR, Gibson J, Ye Z, and CA Bradham, 2023. Voltage-gated sodium channel activity mediates sea urchin larval skeletal patterning through spatial regulation of Wnt5 expression. Development 150(10) DOI: 10.1242/dev.201460
- Hawkins DY, Zuch DT, Huth J, Rodriguez-Sastre N, McCutcheon KR, Glick A, Lion AT, Thomas CF, Descoteaux AE, Johnson WE, and CA Bradham, 2023. ICAT: A Novel Algorithm to Robustly Identify Cell States Following Perturbations in Single Cell Transcriptomes. Bioinformatics 39(5) DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btad278
- Descoteaux AE, Zuch DT, and CA Bradham, 2023. Polychrome labeling reveals skeletal triradiate and elongation dynamics and abnormalities in patterning cue-perturbed embryos. Developmental Biology 498:1-23
- Rodríguez-Sastre N, Shapiro, N, Hawkins DY, Lion AT, Peyreau M, Correa AE, Dionne K, and CA Bradham, 2023. Ethanol Exposure Perturbs Sea Urchin Development and Disrupts Developmental Timing. Developmental Biology 493:89-102