Migration is essential for many normal and disease processes. Tissue development, inflammation, regenerative healing, cancer metastasis, endometriosis, and fistula formation in inflammatory bowel disease all rely on the ability of cells to orchestrate their movements with each other and their surroundings. For this reason, migration research has wide ranging applications, from growing new organs to discovering therapies. Historically, our understanding of how cells sense and move within their environment came almost exclusively from experiments in highly artificial environments, e.g. 2D petri dish systems. While significant advances were made using 2D systems, particularly in the description of molecular signaling networks and biophysical force generation, research in our lab has contributed to the revelation that cell motility in more physiologically relevant 3D environments is different. Our lab develops approaches tailored to studying cells as they migrate in 3D environments. We focus in particular on quantifying the biophysical and biochemical subcellular processes driving and sustaining migration behaviors in 3D tissue-like environments, and we use this information to develop models that allow us to predict and engineer migration outcomes.

The Fraley Lab is also part of the Cancer Cell Map Initiative 2.0, which takes a systems biology approach to map and understand the multiplexed and multiscale interactions that drive cancer in order to identify robust therapeutic strategies.

Integrated biophysical imaging

Phenotype-guided single cell sequencing

Directed Collective migration & morphogenesis