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Deborah Andrew - visit the Andrew lab
Dr. Andrew did her graduate research with Bruce Baker on Drosophila sex determination. As a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Matthew Scott, she developed approaches to learning how homeotic genes control cell identity. This project led to studying specification and morphogenesis of the Drosophila salivary gland, a tubular secretory organ whose formation is linked directly to the homeotic gene Sex combs reduced. The current focus in her lab is to understand the molecular and cellular events controlling organ shape, position and physiology, using the Drosophila salivary gland and trachea, a related tubular organ, as model systems.
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Pierre Coulombe - visit the Coulombe lab
Dr. Coulombe trained broadly in epithelial biology and began his studies on keratin intermediate filament function as a postdoctoral fellow. He helped identify and characterize several keratin functions in vivo, which range from structural support to modulation of signaling pathways. Keratins are associated with several human diseases, providing an opportunity to assess how they impact epithelial biology in clinically-relevant settings. Skin tissue is conceptually rich but readily accessible and amenable to ex vivo experiments, providing an ideal setting for cellular dynamics studies. A major goal in the years ahead is to visualize "keratin proteins at work" in vivo. The development and postnatal cycling of hair follicles and the skin response to injury are examples of physiological settings to which live imaging can be applied.
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Sue Craig - visit the Craig lab
Dr. Craig is a biochemist and cell biologist with a research program on actin-binding proteins and how they regulate the eukaryotic cytoskeleton to achieve dynamic control of cell adhesion, motility and cell shape and architecture. Current efforts focus on identifying components of the integrin-based force transduction machinery in vertebrate tissue culture cells and on learning how they are triggered to assemble and disassemble during cell motility.
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Peter Devreotes - visit the Devreotes lab
Dr. Devreotes was trained in biophysics as a graduate student where he began studies on cell surface receptors and signal transduction. He is now Director of the Department of Cell Biology. His research focuses on understanding how cells sense their surroundings and move directionally. Chemotaxis allows the cells to seek their proper locations during embryogenesis and in adult processes such as wound healing and immune response. Devreotes' laboratory combines live cell and single molecule imaging with genetic analysis available in the model organism, Dictyostelium.
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 Takanari Inoue
Center for Cell Dynamics
Dr. Takanari Inoue received his graduate education at the University of Tokyo, where he developed a novel chemical-biological technique. This technique allows for the “real-time” study of IP3-mediated calcium signaling at high subcellular, spatial resolution. After earning his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Takanari moved to the Bio-X program at Stanford University, where he was a Quantitative Chemical Biology Fellow with Prof. Tobias Meyer. His work at Stanford focused on the creation of other novel synthetic biological techniques that could rapidly – and inducibly – activate or inhibit a variety of intracellular signaling molecules. Using these tools, he addressed a pair of long-standing questions in cell biology, namely the roles of phosphoinositides in KCNQ channel regulation and in localizing small GTPases to the plasma membrane. Currently, the Inoue laboratory is investigating positive-feedback mechanisms underlying the initiation of neutrophil chemotaxis: cell symmetry breaking.
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Alex Kolodkin - visit the Kolodkin lab
Dr. Kolodkin performed his dissertation research with Dr. Franklin W. Stahl on molecular mechanisms of genetic recombination in yeast. He was a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley with Corey Goodman where he studied the molecular mechanisms governing the establishment of neuronal connectivity. The Kolodkin laboratory currently is investigating how families of invertebrate and vertebrate guidance cues direct the establishment and maintenance of neuronal circuits during development and in the adult nervous system. Recent work investigates how guidance cues that repel axons orchestrate the establishment of neuronal connectivity, using both flies and mice as experimental models. A central goal of this research is to determine how repulsive and attractive guidance cues transmit their guidance information to the neuronal growth cone cytoskeleton and thereby guide neuronal and non-neuronal cells to their appropriate targets.
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Scot Kuo - visit the Kuo lab
Dr. Kuo is a cell biologist trained in biochemistry, biophysics and biomedical engineering. He is also director of the microscope facility for the IBBS. His work aims to understand various mechanical functions of cells by using measurements spanning nano-scale to tissue-scale. The Kuo lab uses biochemical reconstitution and live-cell analysis to study actin-based processes in cell motility and cell structure. They invented a number of laser-based optical techniques to quantify the mechanical responses of cells in real-time to complement traditional fluorescent microscopy. Understanding the mechanical dynamics of cellular components will lead to new insights of normal and abnormal cell functions.
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Abraham (Avi) Kupfer
Mollie Meffert - visit the Meffert lab
Dr. Meffert and members of her laboratory are neuroscientists studying the synaptic activity-dependent regulation of gene expression in neurons of the central nervous system. The regulation of gene expression is essential for the capacity of our brains to adapt to change and is implemented in physiological processes such as learning and memory as well as in response to injury and disease. The laboratory is particularly interested in how local synaptic signals may regulate gene expression and the molecular machinery underlying synapse to nucleus communication. The NF-kappaB transcription factors, which are localized at synapses and responsive to neurotransmission, are a main focus of research. A variety of experimental approaches are used to address questions of interest, including live confocal imaging of signaling dynamics, molecular and biochemical studies, mouse genetics and behavioral assays.
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Denise Montell (Director/Chair) - visit the Montell lab
Dr. Montell earned her doctorate degree in neuroscience from Stanford University where she studied embryonic nervous system development in the fruitfully, Drosophila melanogaster in the laboratory of Corey Goodman. She went on to do postdoctoral work with Allan Spradling at the Carnegie Institution where she first developed agenetically tractable model for the study of cell motility in vivo using border cells in the Drosophila ovary. She has continued these studies as an independent investigator, first at the Carnegie and then in the Department of Biological Chemistry here at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Her group has identified numerous signaling pathways that govern the developmental regulation of border cell migration. In particular she has defined the precise cellular and molecular interactions that must take place between the migrating border cells and their microenvironment in order for the proper number of cells to move at the correct developmental time and in the right direction. Most recently, the lab has defined the conditions that permit live-imaging of the migrating cells, permitting a whole new level of analysis of cellular and molecular dynamics.
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Douglas Robinson - visit the Douglas lab
Dr. Robinson is a cell biologist who trained in molecular genetics and biochemistry. Since his graduate work, he has been interested in cellular morphogenesis and cell shape control. Cell shape control is fundamental for normal physiology such as the formation of neuronal synapses, blood pressure regulation, muscle contraction, andorganogenesis. In contrast, failure in cell shape control leads to cellular transformation and metastasis. Our research is geared toward understanding cell division, a dramatic cell shape change in which a mother cell pinches into two daughter cells. We are currently interested in how the actin network and myosin-II mechanoenzyme interact to drive cell division and how this critical shape change is controlled and regulated through mechanosensation and feedback. Our conceptual and experimental approaches include genetics, biochemistry, quantitative cell imaging, cellular biophysics, and mathematical modeling.
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Geraldine Seydoux - visit the Seydoux lab
Dr. Seydoux is a developmental biologist who studies germ cells. She is investigating the mechanisms that lead to the formation of germ cells during development, and has found that global inhibition of mRNA transcription is a defining characteristic of early germ cells. Using genetics, biochemistry and live imaging, the lab also is investigating how oocytes are triggered to begin development at fertilization, and how fertilized eggs become polarized along the main body axes.
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David Yue - visit the Yue lab
Dr. Yue trained in biomedical engineering, biophysics, and molecular physiology. He is interested in Ca2+ feedback networks involving voltage-gated Ca2+ ion channels, the dominant gatekeepers of Ca2+ entry into neurons, cardiocytes, and numerous other cell types. These regulatory networks exhibit remarkably sophisticated Ca2+ decoding properties, ones that promise crucial impact upon both physiological and pathophysiological function within neuronal and cardiac circuits. The underlying mechanisms and biological impact or manipulation of these networks are dissected with a multi-disciplinary approach incorporating electrophysiology, optical FRET-based imaging, and computational techniques.
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Jin Zhang - visit the Zhang lab
Dr. Zhang received her doctoral degree in chemistry from the University of Chicago where she applied chemical approaches to understanding mechanisms underlying bacterial pathogenesis. While a postdoctoral fellow working with Roger Tsien and Susan Taylor, she developed a novel fluorescent sensor, using a generalizable strategy, to visualize the activity of a prototype kinase (Protein Kinase A) in live mammalian cells. Current topics of interest in her lab at Johns Hopkins include: investigating the spatiotemporal regulation or dysregulation of protein kinases (PKA, Akt/PKB and AMPK) and second messengers in cell migration, energy metabolism and cancer development; developing new technology for multi-dimensional kinase profiling; designing and synthesizing molecular tools for monitoring and perturbing second messenger dynamics in live cells; mechanistic computational modeling and systems analyses of signaling networks; and developing live-cell high-throughput screening methods for identifying kinase regulators.
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