The Sauka-Spengler Lab develops and applies novel methods and technologies to study the molecular interactions that determine cell function in the neural crest, nervous system, and heart. The lab focuses on decoding gene regulatory networks involved in development, regeneration, disease, and evolution.

The lab investigates the gene regulatory circuitry involved in early steps of neural crest formation, the mechanisms and molecules that control the potential fate of neural crest cells, and the regenerative capacity of these cells in chicks, zebrafish, and sea lamprey.

The Sauka-Spengler Lab analyzes additional gene regulatory networks responsible for regulation of the neural crest, blood-forming cells, and other processes such as injury- and cancer-induced inflammation and organ regeneration.

The lab also researches how species-specific features have emerged during evolution and which mechanistic changes in gene regulatory programs of invertebrates led to this evolution. They employ comparative studies across animal species, using systems-level approaches to align gene regulatory circuitries obtained at single-cell resolution and computational, statistical, and AI-based methods to integrate the data.