Lab News
Hannah publishes WIREs Developmental Biology review
Congratulations to postdoc, Hannah Yevick, for publishing her review article “Quantitative Analysis of Cell Shape and the Cytoskeleton in Developmental Biology” in WIREs Developmental Biology.
Welcome new lab members
We have a number of new additions to the lab including postdocs Jasmin Imran Alsous and Nat Clarke, graduate students Anna Yeh and Jaclyn Camuglia, undergraduates Prateek Kalakuntla and Jennifer Nwako, and technician Vardges Tserunyan.
Congratulations Dr. Heer
Congratulations to graduate student, Natalie Heer, on giving an excellent research presentation and successfully defending her thesis. Best of luck at your new position as a Data Scientist.
Natalie publishes Development review
Congratulations to graduate student, Natalie Heer, for publishing her review article “Tension, Contraction and Tissue Morphogenesis” in Development. Natalie contributed to the special issue celebrating the 100th anniversary of “On Growth and Form.” Her review article describes the latest research explaining how forces are generated to sculpt tissues.
Soline publishes Current Biology paper
Congratulations to Soline on publishing her work “Myosin 2-Induced Mitotic Rounding Enables Columnar Epithelial Cells to Interpret Cortical Spindle Positioning Cues” in Current Biology. Soline showed how mitotic cell rounding is critical to orient cell division such that both daughter cells remain in the tissue.
Marlis Passed Qualifying Exam
Congratulations to graduate student, Marlis Denk-Lobnig, on passing her qualifying exam.
Soline publishes Nature Communications paper
Congratulations to Soline on publishing her work “Actomyosin Meshwork Mechanosensing Enables Tissue Shape to Orient Cell Force” in Nature Communications. Soline discovered a mechanism by which tissue and organism shape can instruct cells how to generate force. This has implications in understanding how tissues and organs acquire their correct shape.
Natalie publishes Development paper
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.
Congratulations Dr. Coravos
Jonathan Coravos gave an amazing seminar and successfully defended his thesis. Well done Jonathan! Have fun in Chile!
Claudia Vasquez publishes eLife paper
Congratulations Claudia on publishing her work “Drosophila Non-muscle Myosin II Motor Activity Determines the Rate of Tissue Folding” in eLife. Claudia demonstrated that myosin 2 motor activity sets the rate of apical constriction and tissue folding, showing that myosin 2 is the motor that drives these processes. This work was the result of a great collaboration with James Sellers’ lab at the National Institutes of Health.
Lab wins Halloween group costume contest
The Martin lab won the coveted group costume competition for the Biology department Halloween party. They had a winning combination of fish-like pillows and various forms of wasabi.
Jonathan Coravos publishes Developmental Cell paper
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.
Clint and Prateek publish paper in Molecular Biology of the Cell
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.
Mary Ann Collins and Jonathan Jackson join the lab
Jonathan comes to us from the Harvard Biophysics PhD program and Mary Ann did her PhD on nuclear movement in muscle.
Jaci Camuglia and Anna Yeh passed Ph.D. candidacy exams
Congratulations to Jaci Camuglia and Anna Yeh on passing their Ph.D. candidacy exams! Excited to see what research directions we go in over the next few years.
Hannah publishes Developmental Cell paper
Postdoctoral fellow, Hannah Yevick, published her research titled Structural redundancy in supracellular actomyosin networks enables robust tissue folding in Developmental Cell. You can hear her talk about what she discovered in the video produced by Raleigh McElvery of the MIT Biology department. Read an MIT News article on the research.
Clint publishes paper on Journal of Cell Biology
Congratulations to graduate student, Clint Ko, on publishing his research titled Microtubules promote intercellular contractile force transmission during tissue folding in the Journal of Cell Biology. Clint discovered that microtubules maintain intercellular adhesion by regulating actin.
Welcome Babli Adhikary!
Babli is doing summer research as part of the prestigious Khorana Scholars Program.
Marlis featured in MIT Biology news
Congratulations to graduate student, Marlis Denk-Lobnig, who was featured in the MIT Biology department news. Read the article.
Hannah Yevick and Clint Ko submitted papers
Congratulations to Hannah Yevick and Clint Ko on submitting their papers. You can read Hannah’s paper titled Structural redundancy in supracellular actomyosin networks enables robust tissue folding, and Clint’s paper titled Microtubules stabilize intercellular contractile force transmission during tissue folding on BioRxiv.