scholarly journals Cell scientist to watch – Yanlan Mao

2020 ◽  
Vol 133 (17) ◽  
pp. jcs252569
Keyword(s):  
Cell Biology ◽  
Shape Control ◽  
Cell Signalling ◽  
Tissue Mechanics ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Women In Science ◽  
British Society ◽  
University College London ◽  
Cell Shape Control ◽  
The University

ABSTRACTYanlan Mao graduated in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, UK, followed by a PhD in developmental biology and genetics at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB), Cambridge, UK. During this time, she studied cell signalling and epithelial patterning in Drosophila, under the supervision of Matthew Freeman. For her postdoctoral research, Yanlan moved to the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute (now part of the Francis Crick Institute), to study the role of mechanical forces in the orientation of cell division and cell shape control in Nic Tapon's laboratory. She established her own research group in 2014 at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology (MRC-LMCB), University College London, where she addresses the importance of tissue mechanics during development, homeostasis and repair. She was awarded a L'Oreal UNESCO Women in Science Fellowship and the Lister Institute Research Prize in 2018. In 2019, she was awarded the Biophysical Society Early Career Award in Mechanobiology and also became part of the EMBO Young Investigator Programme. Yanlan is the recipient of the 2020 Women in Cell Biology Early Career Award Medal from the British Society for Cell Biology (BSCB).

scholarly journals Cell scientist to watch – Vivian Li

2021 ◽  
Vol 134 (16) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cancer Research ◽  
Mouse Models ◽  
Cell Biology ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Wnt Signalling ◽  
Early Career ◽  
British Society ◽  
Francis Crick ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
The University

ABSTRACT Vivian Li obtained her PhD from the University of Hong Kong in 2008, where she investigated the molecular mechanisms of human colonic development and tumorigenesis. Funded by a Croucher Foundation Fellowship, she joined the lab of Hans Clevers at the Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands for her postdoctoral work. There, she identified novel Wnt signalling mechanisms at different subcellular levels and characterised intestinal stem cell genes using newly created transgenic mouse models. Vivian established her group at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research, which is now part of the Francis Crick Institute, London, in February 2013. In her lab she uses genetic mouse models and organoids to investigate the regulation of intestinal homeostasis and cancer with a primary focus on the Wnt signalling pathway. Vivian was awarded a Future Leaders in Cancer Research Prize in 2018 by Cancer Research UK and is the winner of the 2021 Women in Cell Biology Early Career Medal awarded by the British Society for Cell Biology.

scholarly journals Interview with 2020 Hooke medal winner Ian Chambers

2020 ◽  
Vol 133 (20) ◽  
pp. jcs254219
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cell ◽  
Stem Cell Research ◽  
Cell Biology ◽  
Embryonic Stem ◽  
British Society ◽  
Control Of Gene Expression ◽  
Erythroid Precursor ◽  
Cell Fate Decisions ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University

ABSTRACTIan Chambers studied biochemistry at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK. He then did his PhD in the laboratory of Paul Harrison at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, also in Glasgow. Ian studied the control of gene expression during the differentiation of erythroid precursor cells, discovering that the amino acid selenocysteine is encoded by UGA, which until then was thought to work only as a termination codon. Ian did his post-doctoral work on the regulation of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) with Paul Berg at Stanford University in California, USA. In 1991, he returned to Scotland to work on stem cell regulation with Austin Smith at the Centre for Genome Research (later the Institute for Stem Cell Research) at the University of Edinburgh, UK. During that time, Ian identified the transcription factor Nanog, which directs efficient embryonic stem cell self-renewal. Ian started his research group in 2006 at the University of Edinburgh, where he is also a Professor of Pluripotent Stem Cell Biology. His laboratory tries to understand the regulatory networks and transcription factors that control the identity of pluripotent embryonic stem cells, and how these modulate cell fate decisions during the differentiation process. Ian is now the Head of the Institute for Stem Cell Research at University of Edinburgh, an EMBO member and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Ian is the recipient of the 2020 Hooke Medal from the British Society for Cell Biology (BSCB).

scholarly journals First person – Agathe Chaigne

2021 ◽  
Vol 134 (14) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cell ◽  
Cell Fate ◽  
Cell Biology ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Early Career ◽  
First Person ◽  
Early Career Researchers ◽  
University College London ◽  
Molecular Cell Biology ◽  
Selection Of

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Agathe Chaigne is first author on ‘ Three-dimensional geometry controls division symmetry in stem cell colonies’, published in JCS. Agathe is a postdoc in the lab of Ewa Paluch at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology (LMCB), University College London, London, UK, investigating the crosstalk between cell division and cell fate transitions during development.

scholarly journals Cell scientist to watch – Anthony Roberts

2021 ◽  
Vol 134 (1) ◽  
pp. jcs256172
Keyword(s):  
Cytoplasmic Dynein ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Senior Lecturer ◽  
Research Award ◽  
Dynein Motor ◽  
Senior Research ◽  
University College London ◽  
Cilia And Flagella ◽  
Career Research ◽  
The University

ABSTRACTAnthony Roberts studied biochemistry at Imperial College London, UK. He then pursued a PhD in molecular and cellular biology with Peter Knight and Stan Burgess at the University of Leeds, UK, where he studied the mechanism of the dynein motor protein. After this, Anthony moved to Boston, USA, for his postdoctoral work with Samara Reck-Peterson, at the Harvard Medical School, focussing on cytoplasmic dynein regulation. In late 2014, he returned to London, UK to start his own lab at the Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology at Birkbeck, University of London, and University College London (UCL), where he is now a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow and Proleptic Senior Lecturer. Anthony received the Biochemical Society Early Career Research Award in 2016, a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council New Investigator Award in 2017, and was elected to the EMBO Young Investigator Programme in 2018. His lab is focussing on the mechanisms of microtubule-based transport within cilia and flagella.

scholarly journals First person – Ralitsa Madsen

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. dmm048939
Keyword(s):  
Early Career ◽  
First Person ◽  
University Of Cambridge ◽  
Tgfβ Signalling ◽  
Human Disorders ◽  
Cellular Context ◽  
Pi3k Signalling ◽  
University College London ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University

ABSTRACTFirst Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Ralitsa Madsen is first author on ‘NODAL/TGFβ signalling mediates the self-sustained stemness induced by PIK3CAH1047R homozygosity in pluripotent stem cells’, published in DMM. Ralitsa conducted the research described in this article while a member of Prof. Robert Semple's lab, initially as a PhD student at the Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Council Institute of Metabolic Science-Metabolic Research Laboratories at Addenbrooke's Hospital, University of Cambridge, UK, and then as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She is now a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Prof. Bart Vanhaesebroeck at University College London Cancer Institute, London, UK, investigating the cellular context-dependent PI3K signalling code, and its reprogramming in human disorders such as cancer and benign overgrowth.

Biophysics (and sociology) of ceramides.

2005 ◽  
Vol 72 ◽  
pp. 177-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Félix M. Goñi ◽  
F-Xabier Contreras ◽  
L-Ruth Montes ◽  
Jesús Sot ◽  
Alicia Alonso
Keyword(s):  
Cell Biology ◽  
Positive Curvature ◽  
Acyl Chain ◽  
Cell Signalling ◽  
Hexagonal Structure ◽  
Lipid Monolayer ◽  
Flip Flop ◽  
Long Chain ◽  
Bilayer Permeability

In the past decade, the long-neglected ceramides (N-acylsphingosines) have become one of the most attractive lipid molecules in molecular cell biology, because of their involvement in essential structures (stratum corneum) and processes (cell signalling). Most natural ceramides have a long (16-24 C atoms) N-acyl chain, but short N-acyl chain ceramides (two to six C atoms) also exist in Nature, apart from being extensively used in experimentation, because they can be dispersed easily in water. Long-chain ceramides are among the most hydrophobic molecules in Nature, they are totally insoluble in water and they hardly mix with phospholipids in membranes, giving rise to ceramide-enriched domains. In situ enzymic generation, or external addition, of long-chain ceramides in membranes has at least three important effects: (i) the lipid monolayer tendency to adopt a negative curvature, e.g. through a transition to an inverted hexagonal structure, is increased, (ii) bilayer permeability to aqueous solutes is notoriously enhanced, and (iii) transbilayer (flip-flop) lipid motion is promoted. Short-chain ceramides mix much better with phospholipids, promote a positive curvature in lipid monolayers, and their capacities to increase bilayer permeability or transbilayer motion are very low or non-existent.

The Pransky interview: Dr Yoky Matsuoka, Vice President Technology, Nest Labs

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 481-486
Author(s):  
Joanne Pransky
Keyword(s):  
Computer Science ◽  
Mechanical Engineering ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Industrial Robot ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Smoke Detector ◽  
Foundation Engineering ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The University

Purpose – This article is a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal as a method to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry engineer-turned entrepreneur regarding the evolution, commercialization and challenges of bringing a technological invention to market. Design/methodology/approach – The interviewee is Dr Yoky Matsuoka, the Vice President of Nest Labs. Matsuoka describes her career journey that led her from a semi-professional tennis player who wanted to build a robot tennis buddy, to a pioneer of neurobotics who then applied her multidisciplinary research in academia to the development of a mass-produced intelligent home automation device. Findings – Dr Matsuoka received a BS degree from the University of California, Berkeley and an MS and PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She was also a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT and in Mechanical Engineering at Harvard University. Dr Matsuoka was formerly the Torode Family Endowed Career Development Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington (UW), Director of the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering and Ana Loomis McCandless Professor of Robotics and Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. In 2010, she joined Google X as one of its three founding members. She then joined Nest as VP of Technology. Originality/value – Dr Matsuoka built advanced robotic prosthetic devices and designed complementary rehabilitation strategies that enhanced the mobility of people with manipulation disabilities. Her novel work has made significant scientific and engineering contributions in the combined fields of mechanical engineering, neuroscience, bioengineering, robotics and computer science. Dr Matsuoka was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in which she used the Genius Award money to establish a nonprofit corporation, YokyWorks, to continue developing engineering solutions for humans with physical disabilities. Other awards include the Emerging Inventor of the Year, UW Medicine; IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Academic Career Award; Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers; and numerous others. She leads the development of the learning and control technology for the Nest smoke detector and Thermostat, which has saved the USA hundreds of billions of dollars in energy expenses. Nest was sold to Google in 2013 for a record $3.2 billion dollars in cash.

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