2005 MCDB Newsletter
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MCDB N e w s Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Fall 2005 Contents Eran Pichersky James Bardwell Collegiate Awarded Named HHMI Professorship............... 1 Collegiate Investigator HHMI Investigator........ 1 Professorship MCDB Associate Professor, James MCDB Professor, Bardwell, has been selected as a Eran Pichersky, Howard Hughes Medical Institute New MCDB Website...... 1 was recently investigator effective September 1, honored by being 2005. Jim will join a prestigious group Chair’s Message............ 2 named a Collegiate of about 300 HHMI investigators Professor by the serving as faculty science Spotlight........ 2 College of LS&A members at host in recognition of Eran Pichersky institutions, like Our New his truly extraordinary record of the University of Faculty............................. 3 accomplishment in research, service Michigan, which and teaching. His title will be the has a long-term Emeritus Honors.......... 4 Michael M. Martin Collegiate collaborative Professor of Molecular, Cellular and relationship with James Bardwell In Memorium.................... 4 Developmental Biology. the HHMI. New MCDB Website MCDB Faculty MCDB is pleased to announce the launching of our new departmental website Happenings..................... 4 on September 1st, 2005. We hope you will find it informative and “search friendly.” In addition to a new graphical design and greatly enhanced navigation Priscilla Connell capability, we expanded the content of the site to include new Memorial Lectures...... 5 sections such as: • Faculty News – Up-to-date information on faculty Sponsored Research happenings in MCDB. Highlights....................... 5 • People Directories – Faculty, Graduate Students, Office MC of the Chair and Staff directories featuring pictures and various sort capabilities. PostDoctoral Fellows & DB • Research – Descriptions of the six major research areas Where are they now?... 6 of focus in MCDB, an Area of Interest directory to quickly identify faculty members by area of focus with PhD Degrees links to individual faculty lab websites. Granted............................6 • Alumni Section – A brand new section just for our alumni including a Directory, Newsletters, Alumni News, Donation Opportunities, Endowments, Undergraduate and a Donor Honor Roll. Honors............................ 7 Our goal in designing a new website was to make it easier for external and internal viewers to get in touch with and learn more about MCDB. We hope Donor Honor Roll.......8 it is an enjoyable viewing experience! inside You can access the new site at http://www.mcdb.lsa.umich.edu. A Message from the Chair I am pleased to report great progress the organization of courses for first on all four of the initiatives I told you and second year students. about in the 2004 newsletter. Third, in December 2005 we will begin First, we have a superb group of new moving undergraduate lab courses faculty members. Pamela Raymond into the new Undergraduate Science and Gyorgyi Csankovszki add strength Building. This building, which is in Developmental Biology, while located between the Dental School Yanzhuang Wang and Tzvi Tzfira add and the Life Science Institute, will be strength in Cell Biology and the home of most of our lab classes Biochemistry. We continue to actively and also has classrooms with a variety recruit new faculty to the Department of innovative new designs that will Richard Hume with the focus of recruiting for the foster interaction between students. Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Chair coming year on the areas of neurobiology and animal physiology. Fourth, the planning phase for a new We always are glad to hear from building to house MCDB research has graduates of our programs, so please Second, as far as undergraduate just been completed. Pei Cobb Freed send a note or an e-mail message to education, we have now activated a and Partners and the SmithGroup [email protected] if there is new major in neuroscience and have come up with an exciting plan news you would like to share, or if reactivated the dormant major in for the building, and we are awaiting you would like more information microbiology. This year, the major authorization to move forward to about developments in the topic that we will be dealing with is schematic design and construction. Department. Science Spotlight with Ursula Jakob Stress is what Ursula Jakob and her team handles best, particularly oxidative normal and disease conditions have stress, which goes hand in hand with living a life with oxygen. An unavoidable now been shown to be associated with consequence of breathing air is the and may even be caused by the continuous production of reactive oxygen accumulation of reactive oxygen species inside the cells. These are species. These include aging, remarkably potent oxidants and are able neurodegenerative diseases such as to destroy many different cellular Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s components including DNA, proteins and disease, diabetes, and cancer. membranes. It is therefore not surprising that organisms have developed defense During her postdoctoral work, Ursula systems that efficiently neutralize reactive Jakob discovered the protein Hsp33, oxygen species and avert the danger. which is not damaged by oxidative When these defense systems become stress but rather uses reactive oxygen overwhelmed, however, cells become species as the trigger to turn on its oxidatively stressed and the toxic effects Ursula Jakob of reactive oxygen species prevail. Many Ursula Jakob continued on page three 2 Our New Faculty Pamela Raymond Yanzhuang Wang Professor Pamela Raymond joins our Assistant Professor Yanzhuang Wang department from the Department of has joined us from the Yale University Cell & Developmental Biology at UM’s School of Medicine. He served as an Medical School. Her research involves associate research scientist with Dr. the molecular basis of cell-cell Graham Warren in the department of interactions that regulate retinal Cell Biology. His research involves the neurogenesis and neuronal specificity Golgi apparatus, specifically the identification of during development and regeneration. proteins that help generate and maintain the Golgi structure. Gyorgyi Csankovszki Tzvi Tzfira Assistant Professor Gyorgyi On January 1, 2006, Assistant Csankovszki is joining Michigan from Professor Tzvi Tzfira will join the the University of California, Berkeley, department from the State University where she served as a postdoctoral of New York, Stony Brook, where he research fellow in the lab of Dr. Barbara completed his postdoctoral research in Meyer. Her research focuses on the role the lab of Dr. Vitaly Citovsky. His of condensin complexes in establishing higher order research focuses on the identification and chromosome structure and regulating gene expression. characterization of plant protein(s) involved in T- DNA nuclear import, uncoating, and integration. Ursula Jakob continued which becomes specifically activated in cells exposed to activity. This work was published in the journal Cell, oxidative stress, and protects other cellular proteins from regarded by many as the most prestigious biological oxidative damage. During her tenure as a faculty member, journal in the world. She found that Hsp33 is member Ursula Jakob and her lab discovered the mechanism by of a rapidly growing family of redox-regulated proteins which Hsp33 senses and responds to oxidative stress, that form part of a sophisticated cellular strategy that making Hsp33 a paradigm for redox sensing proteins allows cells to fight excess levels of reactive oxygen that use zinc centers as redox switches. species. Hsp33 is a highly potent molecular chaperone, The major focus in her lab is now to find other redox- regulated proteins and to identify sources and targets of When these defense systems oxidative stress during the aging process. To achieve this goal, the Jakob lab has developed a global screen to detect become overwhelmed... and identify redox sensitive proteins in the cell and use cells become oxidatively oxidative stress sensors to monitor oxidative stress in stressed and the vivo. These techniques provide them with the ability to obtain an in vivo snapshot of the redox status of proteins toxic effects of reactive during the aging process and to possibly even determine oxygen species prevail. which oxidants are responsible for aging. 3 Emeritus Honors Lewis Kleinsmith, Ph.D., was named Professor Emeritus of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology on December 31, 2004, following 35 years as a faculty member at the University of Michigan. Professor Kleinsmith joined the University of Michigan faculty as Assistant Professor in 1968, and was subsequently promoted to Associate Professor (1971) and Professor (1975). Much of Professor Kleinsmith’s research at Michigan was devoted to a further elucidation of the role of phosphorylation of The Michigan proteins of the cell nucleus in regulation of gene expression. For his research accomplishments he was named a fellow of the American Association for Difference the Advancement of Science. Professor Kleinsmith was also named an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and received awards from the Governor of Michigan and the Michigan Technology Council. Funding priorities for MCDB and detailed descriptions are available at: H In Memorium I Dr. Patricia Stocking Brown Barb Madsen http://www.lsa.umich.edu/ (1942 – 2004) UofM/Content/lsa/ Barb Madsen passed away over the document/MCDB-product.pdf Dr. Patricia Stocking Brown passed