New editorial board members

Mónica Bettencourt-Dias has been a Group Leader at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia in Portugal since October 2006. Her laboratory studies centriole and cilia biogenesis using a variety of model organisms and patient samples, combining genetic, cellular, biochemical, and bioinformatic approaches. She is interested in how the general properties of these structures, such as their identity, size, and number, are established and how they have evolved. She studied Biochemistry at the Faculty of Sciences in Lisbon and did her PhD, within the Gulbenkian graduate program, at University College London (UK) with Jeremy Brockes, working on heart regeneration in salamanders. She then moved to the University of Cambridge (UK) to do postdoctoral research on cell cycle regulation with David Glover. At the same time, she did a two-year diploma course on science communication at the Birkbeck College in London. She is a member of the EMBO Young Investigator Program. PHOTO COURTESY OF ANA MARIA BETTENCOURT

Danny Lew first trained in genetics (BA), then in molecular biology (as a PhD student with James Darnell, working on interferon-stimulated transcription), and then in yeast genetics and cell biology (as a postdoc with Steve Reed, working on cell cycle control). He is currently a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology at Duke University, where his work focuses on a new cell cycle checkpoint in yeast, which his laboratory discovered and called the morphogenesis checkpoint. He also studies polarity establishment, with a view to understanding the universal problems of symmetry breaking and singularity (i.e., why a polarized cell has one and only one “front”). Recently, his laboratory has started combining mathematical modeling with standard genetics/biochemistry/cell biology approaches to understand the design principles of the polarity and vesicle trafficking machinery. PHOTO COURTESY OF DUKE UNIVERSITY

Tom Rando received his MD and PhD from Harvard University and completed his clinical training in neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. His research has focused primarily on the regulation of stem cell quiescence and differentiation, with a particular interest in the epigenetic control of cell fate of skeletal muscle stem cells. His laboratory has explored the mechanisms of stem cell aging and the molecular control of epigenetic rejuvenation. Current interests also include the regulation of myogenesis by noncoding RNAs and the use of bioengineered scaffolds to induce different stem and progenitor cell states. His laboratory has also had a long-standing interest in the pathogenesis of muscular dystrophies and is currently pursuing the use of stem cells as an experimental therapeutic approach. He is Professor of Neurology and Director of the Glenn Laboratories for the Biology of Aging at Stanford University, and he is Director of the Center for Tissue Regeneration, Repair, and Restoration at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System.

Erik Sahai began his research career studying Rho-dependent signaling to the transcription factor SRF with Richard Treisman. Although this line of research was not entirely successful, it did reveal that the Rho effectors ROCK1 and 2 are required for Ras-mediated transformation. This stimulated his interest in the process of cell transformation and tumorigenesis, and he continued to explore this theme as a postdoc with Chris Marshall, focusing on cell migration and the cytoskeleton and particularly on cancer cells’ movements in three-dimensional environments. He also spent time in John Condeelis’ laboratory learning intravital imaging in order to watch cancer cell dissemination in vivo before starting his own group at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute in 2004. In recent years, his work has focused on using imaging to study cancer cells in transit between primary and secondary sites, focusing on both the signaling that drives cancer cells to become invasive and the mechanistic aspects of cell migration. His laboratory is currently expanding its research horizons to include computational approaches to understand cell migration in complex matrix geometries and explore the utility of targeting invasion in clinical contexts. PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID BACON

Matt Welch’s research focuses on the cytoskeletal machinery that controls cell and organelle shape and movement and the mechanisms used by microbial pathogens to exploit this machinery during infection. Matt’s interest in the cytoskeleton began during his graduate work with David Drubin at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied the regulation of actin function in yeast. As a postdoc with Tim Mitchison at the University of California, San Francisco, he identified the Arp2/3 complex as the actin-nucleating factor that drives actin-based motility of the bacterial pathogen Listeria monocytogenes. His current research has two interrelated goals. The first is to study the function and regulation of actin nucleation factors in cell migration, endocytic trafficking, and nuclear processes. The second is to examine how diverse bacterial and viral pathogens exploit actin to enable host cell invasion, intracellular movement, and cell-to-cell spread. Matt is currently pursuing these goals as a professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley.