Affiliation(s):

• Wayne State University, Department of Biological Sciences

My lab investigates new and unexplored mechanism of metabolic regulation. Metabolism is a combination of biochemical reactions that are essential to every aspect of life. Dysregulation of metabolism in humans leads to devastating disorders many of which we have no effective cures for despite years of research. A key challenge in metabolism research today is to understand how metabolic pathways are spatially organized within the three-dimensional cellular space, and how this organization contributes to context-specific metabolic functions. Recent studies revealed new families of proteins called “tethers” that physically bridge cellular organelles together. These tethers also play important roles in regulating cellular metabolic pathways. Our work is focused on this new area in cell biology to try to dissect mechanisms by which inter-organelle tethers influence cellular metabolism.

Cellular organelles communicate in different ways. As a graduate student, I studied one mode of communication which is facilitated by vesicles that basically bud from one organelle and travel with its cargo to the next organelle. As I was nearing graduation, one of my favorite scientists and mentor Dr. Sandy Schmid introduced me to Dr. Mike Henne who was just starting his lab at UTSW medical center. He was studying a new mode of organelle communication by tethering. I became drawn to the questions and projects that his lab offered and to his unparalleled enthusiasm for science and discovery. I joined his lab and together we solved many interesting puzzles some of which became the foundation of the work that I currently do in my lab.

We are entering a new era in cell biology thanks to the advancements in super-resolution microscopy. Specifically, the field of “organelle contact sites” is definitely on the rise. For a long time, scientists believed that cellular organelles are isolated entities floating around in the cytoplasm. Breakthrough studies over the past decade radically challenged our classical views on the internal organization of eukaryotic cells. These studies revealed close physical connections between cellular organelles and yielded exciting findings including the identification of inter-organelle tethering components, and their roles in cellular homeostasis. A growing number of human diseases such as cancer, diabetes, neurodegeneration, and cardiovascular disease have been associated with defects in inter-organelle contacts. It will be existing to work out the mechanisms in the coming years and witness the development of new unconventional therapies to treat these devastating diseases.

There are many inspiring scientists and engineers from whom I derive my determination and commitment to the vision of what I want my career as a scientist to be about. Marie-Curie, Rosalind Franklin, Nikolas Tesla and others. On a day-to-day basis, I am fortunate to be surrounded by scientists, specifically, women who persevere in their careers in spite of all the obstacles.