Karen Oegema | |
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Born | January 1967 (age 55) |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | University of California San Diego California Institute of Technology |
Awards | ASCB, Women in Cell Biology Mid-Career Award for Excellence in Research 2017 ASCB, Women in Cell Biology Junior Award for Excellence in Research 2006 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences 2003 |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Cell Division and Cell Cycle Control Genetics and Genomics Signal Transduction Stem Cell Biology Systems Biology |
Institutions | University of California San Diego Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research |
Karen Oegema (born January 1967) 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. [1] [2] She is best known for her research with Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), which her lab uses as a model system in their mission to dissect the molecular mechanics of cytokinesis. [2] [3] 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.
Oegema was born in Holland, Michigan to father, Theodore R. Oegema Jr, Ph.D. and mother, Carol Oegema, RN. Her family, including brother, Jeff Oegema, moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan shortly after. She spent most of her childhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota after her father took a joint appointment in Orthopedics and Biochemistry at the University of Minnesota Medical School. [4]
She met her husband, Arshad Desai, at UCSF while completing her doctorate and they have two children, an eight-year-old girl and a twelve-year-old boy. [4] [5]
Karen Oegema began pursuing her interest in scientific research as a high school student working in her father's lab at the University of Minnesota Medical School but chose a different path from him, studying chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology. [3] [4] After receiving her Bachelor of Science in chemistry and learning of her friend's unfulfilling entry-level positions in this field, she shifted her interests back to Cell Biology, receiving her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Francisco in 1996. [3] [4] She then went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany from 1998 to 2001, which became the foundation for the Max Planck Institute (MPI) of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany. [4] [6]
Oegema took a joint appointment in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, setting up her own lab in 2003 at the University of California, San Diego Medical School. [1] [2] [3] [4] Her lab studies centriole duplication and the molecular mechanics underlying cytokinesis utilizing C. elegans as a model system. [3] [4] Her lab seeks to make discoveries in three main areas: (1) Build a functional network for the genes required for embryogenesis, (2) Dissect the molecular mechanics of cytokinesis and (3) Understand the mechanisms underlying centriole duplication and centrosome assembly. [2] [3] [7]
Since 2003, Karen Oegema has remained at UCSF and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research as the head of the laboratory of mitotic mechanisms, an associate professor and now professor of cellular and molecular medicine. She is also a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Cell Biology, directs the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine/Ludwig Cancer Research seminar series and directs the core courses for the Biomedical Sciences graduate program at UCSD. [3] Oegema is also the Vice Chair of the Cancer Research Coordinating Committee at the University of California. [8]
During her postdoc in the Hyman Lab at MPI, Oegema helped to pioneer a C. elegans RNAi (RNA mediated interference) screening system that identified 133 genes necessary for cellular processes in early embryos and also indicated that this screen could be applied to the gene functions of other species as well. [4] [9]
Oegema has helped to identify and characterize multiple proteins involved in the regulation of kinetochores and their role in chromosome segregation, known now as CENP-AHCP-3, CENP-CHCP-4 and KNL-3. [10]
Aurora kinase B is a protein that functions in the attachment of the mitotic spindle to the centromere.
Mitotic checkpoint serine/threonine-protein kinase BUB1 also known as BUB1 is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the BUB1 gene.
Barbara J. Meyer is a biologist and genetist, noted for her pioneering research on lambda phage, a virus that infects bacteria; discovery of the master control gene involved in sex determination; and studies of gene regulation, particularly dosage compensation. Meyer’s work has revealed mechanisms of sex determination and dosage compensation—that balance X-chromosome gene expression between the sexes in Caenorhabditis elegans that continue to serve as the foundation of diverse areas of study on chromosome structure and function today.
Kinetochore protein NDC80 homolog is a protein that in humans is encoded by the NDC80 gene.
Anillin is a conserved protein implicated in cytoskeletal dynamics during cellularization and cytokinesis. The ANLN gene in humans and the scraps gene in Drosophila encode Anillin. In 1989, anillin was first isolated in embryos of Drosophila melanogaster. It was identified as an F-actin binding protein. Six years later, the anillin gene was cloned from cDNA originating from a Drosophila ovary. Staining with anti-anillin antibody showed the anillin localizes to the nucleus during interphase and to the contractile ring during cytokinesis. These observations agree with further research that found anillin in high concentrations near the cleavage furrow coinciding with RhoA, a key regulator of contractile ring formation.
ZW10 interactor (Zwint-1) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ZWINT gene.
Serine/threonine-protein kinase PLK4 also known as polo-like kinase 4 is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the PLK4 gene. The Drosophila homolog is SAK, the C elegans homolog is zyg-1, and the Xenopus homolog is Plx4.
Centromere protein I is a protein that in humans is encoded by the CENPI gene.
Protein MIS12 homolog is a protein that in humans is encoded by the MIS12 gene.
Iain Cheeseman investigates the role of the kinetochore, a group of proteins required for cell division and chromosome segregation. This core network of proteins facilitates the attachment of chromosomes to microtubule polymers—the spindle structures that attach to the ends of cells, pulling and dividing them during cell division. The kinetochore is critical to ensuring duplication without loss or damage to the genetic material. Cheeseman is also investigating the activities of the individual molecular machines that make up this structure and how these proteins are controlled and regulated.
Anthony Arie Hyman FRS is a British scientist and professor at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics.
Joan S. Brugge is the Louise Foote Pfeiffer Professor of Cell Biology and the Director of the Ludwig Center at Harvard Medical School, where she also served as the Chair of the Department of Cell Biology from 2004 to 2014. Her research focuses on cancer biology, and she has been recognized for her explorations into the Rous sarcoma virus, extracellular matrix adhesion, and epithelial tumor progression in breast cancer.
Don W. Cleveland is an American cancer biologist and neurobiologist.
Rong Li is the Director of Mechanobiology Institute, a Singapore Research Center of Excellence, at the National University of Singapore. She is a Distinguished Professor at the National University of Singapore's Department of Biological Sciences and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Cell Biology and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Whiting School of Engineering. She previously served as Director of Center for Cell Dynamics in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences. She is a leader in understanding cellular asymmetry, division and evolution, and specifically, in how eukaryotic cells establish their distinct morphology and organization in order to carry out their specialized functions.
Carl H. June is an American immunologist and oncologist. He is currently the Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. He is most well known for his research into T cell therapies for the treatment of cancer. In 2020 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
JoAnn Trejo is an American pharmacologist, cell biologist and professor 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.
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.
Trisha Nell Davis is an American biochemist, the current Earl Davie/ZymoGenetics Chair of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Washington. Her early research focused on Calmodulin, though the primary focus of her lab has since shifted to the molecular machinery of cell division in budding yeast, especially the microtubule organizing centers and the kinetochores.
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.
Sophie Geneviève Elisabeth Martin Benton is a Swiss biologist who is Professor and Director of the Department of Fundamental Microbiology at the University of Lausanne. Her research investigates the molecular processes that underpin cellular fusion. She was awarded the EMBO Gold Medal in 2014.