Biography
Dr. Hanson earned a B.A. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University, and Ph.D. and M.D. degrees from the Stanford University School of Medicine studying Ca2+/calmodulin dependent protein kinase II. She then completed postdoctoral work at Yale in membrane trafficking before joining the Department of Cell Biology and Physiology at Washington University, where she rose from assistant professor in 1997 to Gerty T. Cori Professor in 2016. She moved to the University of Michigan as the Minor J. Coon Professor and Chair in 2018.
Dr. Hanson is an associate editor of the Journal of Biological Chemistry and a member of the American Society of Cell Biology, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She recently served as chair of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Membrane Biology and Protein Processing Study Section, and earlier as chair of the NIH Synapses, Cytoskeleton and Trafficking Study Section. Among her honors, she was a W.M. Keck Foundation Distinguished Young Scholar in Medical Research and also received Searle, McKnight, and Sloan scholar awards. She will serve as vice chair and then chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Lysosomes and Endocytosis.
Areas of Interest
Dr. Hanson’s research focuses on understanding how proteins interact to regulate the structure and organization of cell membranes both inside and outside the cell, and has implications for understanding a wide range of diseases including among others neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and the debilitating movement disorder, dystonia. Specific areas of interest include protein-protein and protein-membrane interactions involved in membrane trafficking and organelle structure, with focus on ESCRTs, AAA+ ATPases and associated machinery.
Honors & Awards
Elected Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2016
Gerty T. Cori Professorship, Washington University School of Medicine, 2016
Distinguished Young Scholar in Medical Research, W.M. Keck Foundation, 1999
Searle Scholar Award, 1999
Sloan Research Fellowship, 1999
McKnight Scholar Award, 1998–2000
Published Articles or Reviews
Recent Publications
Upregulation of the ESCRT pathway and multivesicular bodies accelerates degradation of proteins associated with neurodegeneration.
Benyair R, Giridharan SSP, Rivero-Ríos P, Hasegawa J, Bristow E, Eskelinen EL, Shmueli MD, Fishbain-Yoskovitz V, Merbl Y, Sharkey LM, Paulson HL, Hanson PI, Patnaik S, Al-Ramahi I, Botas J, Marugan J, Weisman LS.
Autophagy Rep. 2023; 2: 2166722.
A conserved ubiquitin- and ESCRT-dependent pathway internalizes human lysosomal membrane proteins for degradation.
Zhang W, Yang X, Chen L, Liu YY, Venkatarangan V, Reist L, Hanson P, Xu H, Wang Y, Li M.
PLoS Biol. 2021; 19: e3001361.
ESCRT puts its thumb on the nanoscale: Fixing tiny holes in endolysosomes.
Bohannon KP, Hanson PI.
Curr Opin Cell Biol. 2020; 65: 122–30.
A cell-based assay for CD63-containing extracellular vesicles.
Cashikar AG, Hanson PI.
PLoS One. 2019; 14: e0220007.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis Type VII Secretion System Effectors Differentially Impact the ESCRT Endomembrane Damage Response.
Mittal E, Skowyra ML, Uwase G, Tinaztepe E, Mehra A, Köster S, Hanson PI, Philips JA.
mBio. 2018; 9: e01765-18.
Long-range function of secreted small nucleolar RNAs that direct 2'-O-methylation.
Rimer JM, Lee J, Holley CL, Crowder RJ, Chen DL, Hanson PI, Ory DS, Schaffer JE.
J Biol Chem. 2018; 293: 13284–96.
Triggered recruitment of ESCRT machinery promotes endolysosomal repair.
Skowyra ML, Schlesinger PH, Naismith TV, Hanson PI.
Science. 2018; 360: eaar5078.
For a list of publications from PubMed, click HERE