Ira Mellman

Last updated
Ira Mellman
Alma mater Oberlin College, Yale University, Rockefeller University
Known for endosomes
Scientific career
Fields cell biology
Institutions Genentech, University of California, San Francisco
Doctoral advisor Leon Rosenberg
Other academic advisors Ralph Steinman

Ira Mellman is an American cell biologist who discovered endosomes. [1] He serves as Vice President of Research Oncology at Genentech in South San Francisco, California. [2]

Contents

Research

Mellman's work has examined the role of endocytosis in cell metabolism and human disease. He was among the first to characterize the endosomal system. Later projects include investigation of LDL cholesterol receptor internalization, cellular sorting machinery, and the cellular basis for immunity. He is an authority on the cell biological mechanisms and function of dendritic cells, the cell type responsible for initiating the immune response, an interest that dates back to his postdoctoral period at Rockefeller University in the lab of Ralph Steinman, who won the Nobel Prize in 2011 for his discovery of dendritic cells.

Early life and education

Mellman grew up in New York, where he lived until he enrolled at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. While in college he maintained an interest in music but focused on the rapidly expanding field of cell biology. Working with David Miller, he began to study Chlamydomonas and found that a significant amount of the cell wall consisted of extensin. [3] After leaving Oberlin, he enrolled in the graduate program at the University of California, Berkeley, but later transferred to Yale University to switch to research more applicable to people. At Yale, he studied the genetics behind vitamin B12 metabolism under the guidance of geneticist Leon Rosenberg. He became interested in endocytosis and did a postdoc with Ralph Steinman and Zanvil A. Cohn at Rockefeller University and started characterizing endosomes. [2]

Return to Yale and later years

He returned to Yale after completing postdoctoral work and remained there as a professor for over twenty years. During this time he was the Sterling Professor of Cell Biology & Immunobiology, chair of the Cell Biology Department, Scientific Director of the Yale Cancer Center and a member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. Mellman has served on the council of the American Society for Cell Biology, is currently on the Board of Directors of the American Association for Cancer Research, and was the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Cell Biology from 1999 to 2008. He remains active as a senior editor for the journal.

In 2007, he was recruited to Genentech as the VP of Research Oncology to replace Marc Tessier-Lavigne. There, the company is developing understanding of immunology and along that, immunotherapy.

Mellman is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, [2] a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Foreign Associate of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO).

In 1976, he married Margaret Moench; [4] the couple have three children.

Appearances

In December 2018, Mellman spoke at the 'Antibody Engineering and Therapeutics" conference, which took place in San Diego, California.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Endocytosis</span> Cellular process

Endocytosis is a cellular process in which substances are brought into the cell. The material to be internalized is surrounded by an area of cell membrane, which then buds off inside the cell to form a vesicle containing the ingested material. Endocytosis includes pinocytosis and phagocytosis. It is a form of active transport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Endosome</span> Vacuole to which materials ingested by endocytosis are delivered

Endosomes are a collection of intracellular sorting organelles in eukaryotic cells. They are parts of endocytic membrane transport pathway originating from the trans Golgi network. Molecules or ligands internalized from the plasma membrane can follow this pathway all the way to lysosomes for degradation or can be recycled back to the cell membrane in the endocytic cycle. Molecules are also transported to endosomes from the trans Golgi network and either continue to lysosomes or recycle back to the Golgi apparatus.

Retromer is a complex of proteins that has been shown to be important in recycling transmembrane receptors from endosomes to the trans-Golgi network (TGN) and directly back to the plasma membrane. Mutations in retromer and its associated proteins have been linked to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Occludin</span> Mammalian protein found in Homo sapiens

Occludin is an enzyme that oxidizes NADH. It was first identified in epithelial cells as a 65 kDa integral plasma-membrane protein localized at the tight junctions. Together with Claudins, and zonula occludens-1 (ZO-1), occludin has been considered a staple of tight junctions, and although it was shown to regulate the formation, maintenance, and function of tight junctions, its precise mechanism of action remained elusive and most of its actions were initially attributed to conformational changes following selective phosphorylation, and its redox-sensitive dimerization. However, mounting evidence demonstrated that occludin is not only present in epithelial/endothelial cells, but is also expressed in large quantities in cells that do not have tight junctions but have very active metabolism: pericytes, neurons and astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, dendritic cells, monocytes/macrophages lymphocytes, and myocardium. Recent work, using molecular modeling, supported by biochemical and live-cell experiments in human cells demonstrated that occludin is a NADH oxidase that influences critical aspects of cell metabolism like glucose uptake, ATP production and gene expression. Furthermore, manipulation of occludin content in human cells is capable of influencing the expression of glucose transporters, and the activation of transcription factors like NFkB, and histone deacetylases like sirtuins, which proved capable of diminishing HIV replication rates in infected human macrophages under laboratory conditions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ralph M. Steinman</span> Canadian immunologist and cell biologist

Ralph Marvin Steinman was a Canadian physician and medical researcher at Rockefeller University, who in 1973 discovered and named dendritic cells while working as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Zanvil A. Cohn, also at Rockefeller University. Steinman was one of the recipients of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LRP1</span> Mammalian protein found in Homo sapiens

Low density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1 (LRP1), also known as alpha-2-macroglobulin receptor (A2MR), apolipoprotein E receptor (APOER) or cluster of differentiation 91 (CD91), is a protein forming a receptor found in the plasma membrane of cells involved in receptor-mediated endocytosis. In humans, the LRP1 protein is encoded by the LRP1 gene. LRP1 is also a key signalling protein and, thus, involved in various biological processes, such as lipoprotein metabolism and cell motility, and diseases, such as neurodegenerative diseases, atherosclerosis, and cancer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AP1M1</span> Protein-coding gene in the species Homo sapiens

AP-1 complex subunit mu-1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the AP1M1 gene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NISCH</span> Protein-coding gene in the species Homo sapiens

Nischarin is a protein that in humans is encoded by the NISCH gene.

<i>Journal of Cell Biology</i> Academic journal

The Journal of Cell Biology is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Rockefeller University Press.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">STX10</span> Protein-coding gene in the species Homo sapiens

Syntaxin-10 (STX10) is a SNARE protein that is encoded by the STX10 gene. This protein is found in most vertebrates but is noticeably absent from mice. As with other SNARE proteins, STX10 facilitates vesicle fusion and thus is important for intracellular trafficking of proteins and other cellular components. More specifically, STX10 has been implicated in endosome to Golgi trafficking of the mannose 6-phosphate receptor and glucose transporter type 4.

Zanvil Alexander Cohn was a cell biologist and immunologist who upon his death was described by The New York Times as being "in the forefront of current studies of the body's defenses against infection.", professor at Rockefeller University. There Cohn had been the Henry G. Kunkel Professor for seven years. Cohn was senior physician at the university as well as vice president for medical affairs. Until two years before his death, he also served as principal investigator of the Irvington Institute for Medical Research. Although Cohn never won the Nobel Prize, Ralph M. Steinman, with whom he ran a laboratory at Rockefeller University for many years, was named to win the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the work on dendritic cells done in their lab, eighteen years after Cohn's death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert F. Murphy (computational biologist)</span>

Robert F. Murphy is Ray and Stephanie Lane Professor of Computational Biology Emeritus and Director of the M.S. Program in Automated Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to his retirement in May 2021, he was the Ray and Stephanie Lane Professor of Computational Biology as well as Professor of Biological Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, and Machine Learning. He was founding Director of the Center for Bioimage Informatics at Carnegie Mellon and founded the Joint CMU-Pitt Ph.D. Program in Computational Biology. He also founded the Computational Biology Department at Carnegie Mellon University and served as its head from 2009 to 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sandra Schmid</span> Canadian biologist

Sandra Louise Schmid is the first Chief Scientific Officer of the Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub. She is a Canadian cell biologist by training; prior to her move to CZI, she was Professor and Chair of the Cell Biology Department at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Throughout her academic career, she has authored over 105 publications on the molecular mechanism and regulation of clathrin-mediated endocytosis and the structure and function of the GTPase dynamin and mechanisms governing membrane fission. She was the first to identify dynamin's key role in endocytosis. She is a co-founder of the journal Traffic and has been the Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Biology of the Cell, and the President of the American Society for Cell Biology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michel C. Nussenzweig</span> Brazilian immunologist

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Valentina Greco is an Italian-born biologist who teaches at the Yale School of Medicine as the Carolyn Walch Slayman Professor of Genetics and is an Associate Professor in the Cell Biology and Dermatology departments. Her research focuses on the role of skin stem cells in tissue regeneration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Gruenberg</span> Swiss biologist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bradlee Heckmann</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Casper Hoogenraad</span> Dutch biologist

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References

  1. Wells, W. A. (2007). "Ira Mellman: From endosomes to industry". The Journal of Cell Biology. 177 (4): 570–571. doi:10.1083/jcb.1774pi. PMC   2064202 . PMID   17517958.
  2. 1 2 3 Nair, P. (2012). "Profile of Ira Mellman". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 109 (23): 8790–2. Bibcode:2012PNAS..109.8790N. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1207791109 . PMC   3384157 . PMID   22645337.
  3. Miller, D. H. (1 November 1974). "The chemical composition of the cell wall of Chlamydomonas gymnogama and the concept of a plant cell wall protein". The Journal of Cell Biology. 63 (2): 420–429. doi:10.1083/jcb.63.2.420. PMC   2110943 . PMID   4607708.
  4. "Margaret Moench, Art Student, Married to Ira Seth Mellman, Doctoral Candidate". The New York Times. 20 September 1976.