Nat Clarke published review on Current Biology

Congratulations Jonathan on publishing his work “Apical Sarcomere-like Actomyosin Contracts Nonmuscle Drosophila Epithelial Cells” in Developmental Cell. Jonathan discovered that the apical actin cortex of an epithelial cell can be organized like a muscle sarcomere to promote contraction and tissue folding.

Graduate student Clint Ko and Undergraduate Prateek Kalakuntla publish MBoC paper on how mitotic entry can repress ‘active’ contractility and result in relaxation that promotes neighboring tissue folding.

Hannah received her Ph.D. from the Institut Curie in Paris, France. Her Bachelor’s degree is in Physics and she published a really cool paper on cells walking a “tightrope.” She is interested in collective cell behavior changing tissue shape.

Congratulations Natalie on publishing her work “Actomyosin-based Tissue Folding Requires a Multicellular Myosin Gradient” in Development. Natalie discovered that a tissue-wide gradient in transcription and resulting contractility is necessary to fold a tissue. We had fun collaborating with Pearson Miller and the Dunkel Lab on this project.

Juana De La O comes to us from the University of Chicago and the MIT Biology PhD program.

Congratulations to graduate student, Jonathan Coravos, on passing his qualifying exam.