Areas of Interest
We study how eukaryotic cells ensure stable genome inheritance during cell division. Every time a cell divides, it sends exactly one copy of each of its chromosomes to each daughter cell. This process, commonly referred to as chromosome segregation, is of fundamental significance in cell and organismal biology. It is also important for our own well-being: chromosome mis-segregation plays a role in many diseases, including cancer, and is implicated in age-related infertility. Therefore, our goal is to clearly define how complex protein machines in the cell achieve accurate chromosome segregation.
We work at the interface between cell biology and biophysics, as well as cell biology and biochemistry. Our expertise is using quantitative, live-cell fluorescence microscopy to observe cell division in action. We also engineer protein systems to read out events in a cell, for example the biochemical reactions of the mitotic checkpoint, a critical signaling cascade involved in chromosome segregation. Our ultimate goal is to reverse engineer a complex protein machine, known as the kinetochore, to segregate synthetic chromosomes.