WOMEN in Cell Biology Celebrating Outstanding Cell Biologists at Distinct Career Stages: The WICB Recognition Awards, Past and Present

Career Advice for Women in Cell Biology Committee realized that the critical career period between Women and Men Awards junior and senior stages was being overlooked. Each year, the Women in Cell Accordingly, in 2013 WICB Biology Committee (WICB) established the Mid-Career honors three investigators at Award for Excellence in Research. distinct career stages through This award recognizes a woman recognition awards. The unique who has held an independent and innovative WICB Junior [Julie C. position for 7–15 years, who and Senior Career Recognition has demonstrated a track Awards were established in 1986. Canman’s] record of exceptional scientific The Junior Award for nominator Gregg contributions to cell biology or has effectively translated cell Excellence in Research (formerly Gundersen noted the Junior Career Recognition biology across disciplines, and Award), which is given to a that she is a rising who exemplifies a high level of scientific endeavor and leadership. woman, was the first ASCB star in her field. award aimed at identifying In this historical context, we Julie C. Canman newly independent, early-career are pleased to announce our 2017 scientists who exhibit significant award recipients: Julie Canman, potential for making scientific Columbia University; Karen contributions. (ASCB has more Oegema, University of California, recently established gender- San Diego; and Harvey Lodish, neutral awards similarly targeting early-career Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). scientists.) The award has been predictive of The list of previous winners can be found at continued success, as evidenced by academic www.ascb.org/wicb-awards. We encourage you tenure and promotion as well as subsequent to join us in honoring the 2017 awardees during receipt of prestigious awards and honors, such the ASCB|EMBO Meeting in Philadelphia as the the National Institutes of Health (NIH) at our WICB Awards and Mentoring Theater Pioneer Award, Howard Hughes Medical session on Tuesday, December 5, from 10:45 Institute funding, and ASCB’s E.B. Wilson am–12:00 pm in the Pennsylvania Convention Award. Center Room 122B. The WICB Senior Leadership Award (formerly Senior Career Recognition Award) was Julie C. Canman: Junior Award for also unique in that it combined recognition of Excellence in Research scientific achievement and a strong commitment Julie Canman is assistant professor in the to the fostering of women in science. In 2015, Department of Pathology and Cell Biology the WICB Senior Leadership Award was at Columbia University where her nominator renamed for Sandra K. Masur for her leadership Gregg Gundersen noted that she is a rising star as chair of WICB from 2000–2016 and for in her field. Her research achievements in the her long service as a member of this highly field of cytokinesis are built on her “classical” collaborative committee. training in cell biology combined with her As an increasing number of ASCB awards for success in technology development, her creative junior and senior scientists were created, WICB approaches, and her experimental rigor. As an

28 ASCB NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 2017 undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, Karen Oegema: Mid-Career Award Madison, she acquired a passion for physical for Excellence in Research processes during cytokinesis after learning about Karen Oegema is professor in the Department Ray Rappaport’s famous torus experiment in a of Cellular and Molecular and a cell biology course. After earning her BS degree member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer she became the first technician in Bill Bement’s Research, University of California, San Diego newly established University of Wisconsin, (UCSD). Her independent research program Madison, lab where they used Xenopus oocytes since joining the UCSD faculty in 2002 to address questions on the role of microtubules addresses questions on centriole assembly in regulating actomyosin-based cortical flow for and cytokinesis by integrating approaches in cytokinesis. biochemistry, genetics, in vivo Canman’s PhD thesis imaging, and structural biology. Karen Oegema research at the University of Her lab’s work is built on her North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Oegema has postdoctoral research with Tim with Ted Salmon focused on distinguished Mitchison and Yixian Zheng at understanding the mechanism Harvard University in which she of division plane specification herself not only identified properties ofγ -tubulin and the importance of the in research complexes, and then with Tony cytokinetic phase of the cell Hyman at the Max Planck in cycle in mammalian cells. significance and Dresden where she revealed In successive postdoctoral productivity but mechanisms of centriole assembly fellowships, first with Bruce by using genetic approaches Bowerman at the University also in mentoring in C. elegans. Additionally, her Oregon and then with Karen and teaching vision and creativity are guiding Oegema (this year’s WICB excellence. her group as they generate a Mid-Career Award winner) at functional map of the essential the University of California, genes required for embryo San Diego, Canman used production and development in forward genetic screens in the C. elegans, the majority of which worm Caenorhabditis elegans are conserved in humans. to identify conditional fast-acting cytokinesis- As noted by Don Cleveland, her nominator defective mutants. Her studies identified the for the WICB award, Oegema has distinguished GTPase Activating Protein (GAP) CYK-4 herself not only in research significance (MgcRacGAP in humans) as an inhibitor of Rac and productivity but also in mentoring activity during division and Rac as a negative and teaching excellence. Highlighting her regulator of cytokinesis. mentoring strength, Oegema was a postdoctoral As an independent investigator Canman mentor for Julie Canman, this year’s WICB is revealing the molecular mechanisms that Junior Award recipient (see above). contribute to cytokinetic diversity and ensure As a graduate student with Bruce Alberts robust cell division, by combining conditional at the University of California, San Francisco, worm genetics with single-cell live-cell imaging Oegema was preparing her first real scientific and developing new microscopy-based talk, for a Minisymposium at an ASCB technologies to spatially and temporally inhibit Annual Meeting. But she had a problem: She protein function with precise resolution. In left her only set of slides on a 2:00 am bus addition to her research excellence, Canman has coming home from the lab. Showing her already developed a strong training record in resourcefulness, she “…checked the schedule to mentoring undergraduate and graduate students figure out when the bus would come around as well as postdoctoral fellows. again. When the bus finally returned in the wee hours of the morning and the door opened, I was enormously relieved to find that it was the same driver and he was holding the folder with my slides with a grin on his face. In the

SEPTEMBER 2017 ASCB NEWSLETTER 29 WOMEN in Cell Biology

end, I made it to the meeting with my slides, and seven being elected to the U.S. National the talk went well, and I had a great time at the Academy of Sciences or the National Academy meeting.” of Medicine. And of the many women alumni of the Lodish lab, a substantial number have Harvey Lodish: Sandra K. Masur tenured university positions or leadership Senior Leadership Award positions at the National Institutes of Health or Harvey Lodish is professor in the Department National Research Council, in biotechnology, of Biological Engineering at MIT. He earned and in nonprofit scientific foundations. Jean his PhD in genetics with Schaffer and others supporting his Norton Zinder at the nomination noted that Lodish’s and scientific open-mindedness enables after postdoctoral work Lodish claims trainees to have intellectual freedom Harvey Lodish with and to pursue a range of important at the MRC that many years problems and apply creative thinking Laboratory of Molecular ago he learned in challenging existing paradigms. This approach is also conveyed in Biology he moved from that attracting UK Cambridge to U.S. his lead authorship of the textbook Cambridge in 1968 and and retaining Molecular Cell Biology. Lodish claims that many years ago joined the faculty at MIT, top scientists to where he has remained he learned—in large measure from throughout his career. one’s research his wife and two daughters who have Lodish’s outstanding group requires each had independent careers—that scientific achievements attracting and retaining top scientists and the breadth of his a very family- to one’s research group requires a very investigative impact are friendly culture…. family-friendly culture, both at the evident in his seminal individual lab level and more broadly contributions on plasma across institutions. Lodish embraces membrane proteins, recruiting researchers with families, including membrane opens his home to gatherings for lab glycoproteins, receptors, and families, and even officiated at the glucose, fatty acid, and ion transporters, as well marriage in Taipei of one of his postdocs. Lodish as more recently adipogenesis and erythropoiesis received the Mentor Award in Basic Science through over 600 peer-reviewed articles. His from the American Society of Hematology. scientific impact has been recognized with Within ASCB, Lodish was ASCB president numerous honors, including being a member of in 2004 and a WICB member. On a very the National Academy of Sciences; a fellow of personal level he is an advisor to Parent-Powered the American Association for the Advancement Innovation, a not-for-profit organization that of Science, the American Academy of Arts works with parents interested in developing and Sciences, and the American Academy treatments for their children’s rare diseases. of Microbiology; and an associate (foreign) His grandson has Gaucher disease, a lysosomal member of the European storage disorder, and is being treated with a drug Organization. that Lodish helped develop shortly after helping Another major reason that Lodish is this to found Genzyme, a company devising enzyme year’s Sandra K. Masur Senior Leadership Award replacement therapy. n winner is his outstanding record in training and mentoring over 175 PhD students and —Diane L. Barber, Chair, Women in Cell postdoctoral fellows, with two of his students Biology Committee and Sandra K. Masur, Icahn receiving the Nobel Prize and the Lasker Award School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

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