On Tuesday March 28th, Interdisciplinary Program of Human Toxicology student Kaihua Liu defended his thesis with the title "C/EBP Homologous Protein (CHOP) Confers a Proliferative Advantage to Cells that Escape ER Stress"

Cellular stresses elicit signaling cascades that are simultaneously capable of mitigating the inciting dysfunction and initiating cell death when the stress cannot be remediated. During endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, the transcription factor CHOP is widely recognized to promote cell death. Yet CHOP carries out this function largely by augmenting protein synthesis, which is a seemingly essential component of recovery from stress. It is thus not clear whether CHOP, which is induced by even mild ER stresses that do not result in appreciable cell death, has a beneficial role during recovery from stress. 

Congratulations Kaihua!