The tau proteins are a group of six highly soluble protein isoforms produced by alternative splicing from the gene MAPT. They have roles primarily in maintaining the stability of microtubules in axons and are abundant in the neurons of the central nervous system (CNS), where the cerebral cortex has the highest abundance. They are less common elsewhere but are also expressed at very low levels in CNS astrocytes and oligodendrocytes.
Marc Wallace Kirschner is an American cell biologist and biochemist and the founding chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. He is known for major discoveries in cell and developmental biology related to the dynamics and function of the cytoskeleton, the regulation of the cell cycle, and the process of signaling in embryos, as well as the evolution of the vertebrate body plan. He is a leader in applying mathematical approaches to biology. He is the John Franklin Enders University Professor at Harvard University. In 2021 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
In cell biology, microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs) are proteins that interact with the microtubules of the cellular cytoskeleton. MAPs are integral to the stability of the cell and its internal structures and the transport of components within the cell.
UC San Diego Health is the academic health system of the University of California, San Diego in San Diego, California. It is the only academic health system serving San Diego and has one of three adult Level I trauma centers in the region. In operation since 1966, it comprises three major hospitals: UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest, Jacobs Medical Center in La Jolla, and UC San Diego Health East Campus Medical Center in East County. The La Jolla campus also includes the Moores Cancer Center, Shiley Eye Institute, Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center, and Koman Family Outpatient Pavilion, and the health system also includes several outpatient sites located throughout San Diego County. UC San Diego Health works closely with the university's School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy to provide training to medical and pharmacy students and advanced clinical care to patients.
Lawrence S.B. Goldstein is a professor of cellular and molecular medicine at University of California, San Diego and investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He receives grant funding from the NIH, the Johns Hopkins ALS Center, the HighQ Foundation, and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. In 2020 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Flossie Wong-Staal was a Chinese-American virologist and molecular biologist. She was the first scientist to clone HIV and determine the function of its genes, which was a major step in proving that HIV is the cause of AIDS. From 1990 to 2002, she held the Florence Riford Chair in AIDS Research at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She was co-founder and, after retiring from UCSD, she became the chief scientific officer of Immusol, which was renamed iTherX Pharmaceuticals in 2007 when it transitioned to a drug development company focused on hepatitis C and continued as chief scientific officer.
Eva Nogales is a Spanish-American biophysicist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she served as head of the Division of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology of the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology (2015–2020). She is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
Marilyn Gist Farquhar was a pathologist and cellular biologist, Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Pathology, as well as the chair of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, who previously worked at Yale University from 1973 to 1990. She has won the E. B. Wilson Medal and the FASEB Excellence in Science Award. She was married to Nobel Laureate George Emil Palade from 1970 to his death in 2008. Her research focuses on control of intracellular membrane traffic and the molecular pathogenesis of auto immune kidney diseases. She has yielded a number of discoveries in basic biomedical research including: mechanisms of kidney disease, organization of functions that attach cells to one another, and mechanisms of secretions.
Roger Yonchien Tsien was an American biochemist. He was a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008 for his discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, in collaboration with organic chemist Osamu Shimomura and neurobiologist Martin Chalfie. Tsien was also a pioneer of calcium imaging.
Tubulin alpha-1A chain is a protein that in humans is encoded by the TUBA1A gene.
Victor Nizet is an American microbiologist who is a professor of pediatrics. He is a Distinguished Professor and Vice Chair of Basic Research at the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine. He is also a Distinguished Professor at UCSD Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in La Jolla, California. He is known for his research in the areas of molecular microbiology and the innate immune system, with a particular focus on infectious diseases caused by common Gram-positive bacterial pathogens such as Group A Streptococcus, Group B Streptococcus and Staphylococcus aureus.
Anthony Arie Hyman is a British scientist and director at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics.
Trey Ideker is a professor of medicine and bioengineering at UC San Diego. He is the Director of the National Resource for Network Biology, the San Diego Center for Systems Biology, and the Cancer Cell Map Initiative. He uses genome-scale measurements to construct network models of cellular processes and disease.
Richard David Kolodner is an American scientist with Ludwig Cancer Research who has made research contributions to the genetic basis for inherited susceptibility to common cancers. He is a Distinguished Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. Kolodner is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine, and he is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Roberto Malinow is an Argentinian-born American neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego. He is currently a distinguished professor of neurobiology and neurosciences, and holds the Shiley Chair in Alzheimer's Disease Research at UCSD. In 2012 Dr. Malinow was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and in 2015 was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.
Karen Oegema is a molecular cell biologist at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and a professor of cellular and molecular medicine at the University of California, San Diego. She is best known for her research with Caenorhabditis elegans, which her lab uses as a model system in their mission to dissect the molecular mechanics of cytokinesis. She was given the Women in Cell Biology Mid-Career Award for Excellence in Research in 2017, as well as the Women in Cell Biology Junior Award for Excellence in Research in 2006.
JoAnn Trejo is an American pharmacologist, cell biologist, a professor, and also an assistant vice chancellor in the department of health sciences faculty affairs in the Department of Pharmacology at the School of Medicine at University of California, San Diego. She is also the assistant vice chancellor for Health Sciences Faculty Affairs. Trejo studies cell signalling by protease-activated G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). She is also actively involved in mentoring, education and outreach activities to increase the diversity of science.
Peter Novick is an American scientist who holds the George Palade Endowed Chair in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. His research interests focus on the biology of cell membranes, particularly the secretory pathway and other aspects of membrane trafficking and intracellular transport.
J. Richard McIntosh is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder. McIntosh first graduated from Harvard with a BA in Physics in 1961, and again with a Ph.D. in Biophysics in 1968. He began his teaching career at Harvard but has spent most of his career at the University of Colorado Boulder. At the University of Colorado Boulder, McIntosh taught biology courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Additionally, he created an undergraduate course in the biology of cancer towards the last several years of his teaching career. McIntosh's research career looks at a variety of things, including different parts of mitosis, microtubules, and motor proteins.
Antonina Roll-Mecak is a Romanian-born American molecular biophysicist. She is currently the Senior Investigator and Chief of the Unit of Cell Biology and Biophysics at the National Institutes of Health. She holds appointments at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and at the Biochemistry and Biophysics Center of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Roll-Mecak is known for her work on cytoskeletal regulation, mechanisms of microtubule severing enzymes and microtubule repair, and for her pioneering work in deciphering the complexities of the tubulin code. Her work is relevant to the treatment of cancer and nervous system disorders.
