Ian G. Macara is a British-American biologist, currently the Louise B. McGavock Chair at Vanderbilt University. [1] [2] [3] He received his PhD from the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom and completed postdoctoral training at Harvard University before moving to the University of Virginia, where he was the Harrison Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Director of the Advanced Microscopy Facility. [4] He was named the chair of the Vanderbilt Department of Cell and Developmental Biology in 2012. [5] His research focuses on the molecules that establish Cell polarity in Epithelium, both in normal cells and in cancer. [6] [7] [8]
An embryo is an initial stage of development of a multicellular organism. In organisms that reproduce sexually, embryonic development is the part of the life cycle that begins just after fertilization of the female egg cell by the male sperm cell. The resulting fusion of these two cells produces a single-celled zygote that undergoes many cell divisions that produce cells known as blastomeres. The blastomeres are arranged as a solid ball that when reaching a certain size, called a morula, takes in fluid to create a cavity called a blastocoel. The structure is then termed a blastula, or a blastocyst in mammals.
Susan Lee Lindquist, ForMemRS was an American professor of biology at MIT specializing in molecular biology, particularly the protein folding problem within a family of molecules known as heat-shock proteins, and prions. Lindquist was a member and former director of the Whitehead Institute and was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2010.
George Emil Palade was a Romanian-American cell biologist. Described as "the most influential cell biologist ever", in 1974 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine along with Albert Claude and Christian de Duve. The prize was granted for his innovations in electron microscopy and cell fractionation which together laid the foundations of modern molecular cell biology, the most notable discovery being the ribosomes of the endoplasmic reticulum – which he first described in 1955.
Catherine Dulac is a French–American biologist. She is the Higgins Professor in Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University, where she served as department chair from 2007 to 2013. She is also an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She was born in 1963 in France. She came to the United States for her postdoctoral study in 1991.
Cellular microbiology is a discipline that bridges microbiology and cell biology.
Aviv Regev is a computational biologist and systems biologist and Executive Vice President and Head of Genentech Research and Early Development in Genentech/Roche. She is a core member at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and professor at the Department of Biology of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Regev is a pioneer of single cell genomics and of computational and systems biology of gene regulatory circuits. She founded and leads the Human Cell Atlas project, together with Sarah Teichmann.
Lucy Shapiro is an American developmental biologist. She is a professor of Developmental Biology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She is the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Professor of Cancer Research and the director of the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine.
Elizabeth Jane Robertson is a British developmental biologist based at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford. She is Professor of Developmental Biology at Oxford and a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow. She is best known for her pioneering work in developmental genetics, showing that genetic mutations could be introduced into the mouse germ line by using genetically altered embryonic stem cells. This discovery opened up a major field of experimentation for biologists and clinicians.
Alexander F. Schier is a Professor of Cell Biology and the Director of the Biozentrum University of Basel, Switzerland.
Douglas G. McMahon is a professor of Biological Sciences and Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University. McMahon has contributed several important discoveries to the field of chronobiology and vision. His research focuses on connecting the anatomical location in the brain to specific behaviors. As a graduate student under Gene Block, McMahon identified that the basal retinal neurons (BRNs) of the molluscan eye exhibited circadian rhythms in spike frequency and membrane potential, indicating they are the clock neurons. He became the 1986 winner of the Society for Neuroscience's Donald B. Lindsley Prize in Behavioral Neuroscience for his work. Later, he moved on to investigate visual, circadian, and serotonergic mechanisms of neuroplasticity. In addition, he helped find that constant light can desynchronize the circadian cells in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). He has always been interested in the underlying causes of behavior and examining the long term changes in behavior and physiology in the neurological modular system. McMahon helped identifying a retrograde neurotransmission system in the retina involving the melanopsin containing ganglion cells and the retinal dopaminergic amacrine neurons.
Ruth Lehmann is a developmental and cell biologist. She is the Director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. She previously was affiliated with the New York University School of Medicine, where she was the Director of the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Professor of Cell Biology, and the Chair of the Department of Cell Biology. Her research focuses on germ cells and embryogenesis.
Carl Hirschie Johnson is an American-born biologist who researches the chronobiology of different organisms, most notably the bacterial circadian rhythms of cyanobacteria. Johnson completed his undergraduate degree in Honors Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, and later earned his PhD in biology from Stanford University, where he began his research under the mentorship of Dr. Colin Pittendrigh. Currently, Johnson is the Stevenson Professor of Biological Sciences at Vanderbilt University.
Ginés Morata Pérez ForMemRS is Research Professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid in Spain and an expert in developmental biology of the fruit fly (Drosophila), a specialty he has worked on for over 40 years.
Melissa Helen Little is an Australian scientist and academic, currently Theme Director of Cell Biology, heading up the Kidney Regeneration laboratory at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. She is also a Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne, and Program Leader of Stem Cells Australia. In January 2022, she became CEO of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Stem Cell Medicine reNEW, an international stem cell research center based at University of Copenhagen, and a collaboration between the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Australia, and Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands.
Carole LaBonne is a Developmental and Stem Cell Biologist at Northwestern University. She is the Erastus O. Haven Professor of Life Sciences, and Chair of the Department of Molecular Biosciences.
Samara Reck-Peterson is an American cell biologist and biophysicist. She is a Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California, San Diego and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She is known for her contributions to our understanding of how dynein, an exceptionally large motor protein that moves many intracellular cargos, works and is regulated. She developed one of the first systems to produce recombinant dynein and discovered that, unlike other cytoskeletal motors, dynein can take a wide variety of step sizes, forward and back and even sideways. She lives in San Diego, California.
Rebecca W. Heald is an American professor of cell and developmental biology. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. In May 2019, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. She has published over 120 research articles in peer reviewed journals.
Vivian Irish is an American evolutionary biologist. She is currently Chair & Eaton Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University. Her research focuses on floral development. She was president of Society for Developmental Biology in 2012 and currently serves as an editor for the journals Developmental Biology and Evolution & Development.
Pierre Gönczy is a Swiss and Italian cell and developmental biologist. His research focuses on centriole biology and asymmetric cell division. He is currently professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where he directs the Laboratory of Cell and Developmental Biology.
Elizabeth Gavis is an American biologist who is the Damon B. Pfeiffer Professor of Life Sciences, at Princeton University. Gavis served as the President of the North American Drosophila Board of Directors in 2011.