New editorial board members

Martin Hetzer is the Jesse and Caryl Philips Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and Director of the Waitt Advanced Biophotonics Center at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, CA. Martin received his PhD in biochemistry and genetics from the University of Vienna, Austria, and completed postdoctoral work at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany. His laboratory uses emerging technology and different model organisms to study how the cell nucleus is organized during development and disease. For example, his group discovered a remarkable phenomenon whereby the nuclear envelope becomes transiently ruptured and repaired during interphase in human cancer cells. Strikingly, nuclear envelope rupturing was associated with loss of cell compartmentalization and a catastrophic chromosome rearrangement event called chromothripsis, and thus might be a source of genomic instability. Additional projects include investigations into the role of long-lived proteins in aging and the mechanism of how nuclear envelope proteins regulate developmental gene expression. PHOTO COURTESY OF KENT SCHNOEKER, SALK INSTITUTE

Nancy Ip is Dean of Science, Morningside Professor of Life Science, and Director of the State Key Laboratory of Molecular Neuroscience at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). She received her PhD in pharmacology from Harvard University, after which she held the position of Senior Staff Scientist at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., in New York. Her laboratory aims to understand the molecular pathways essential for wiring neural circuitry during development as well as the modulation of synaptic strength between neurons in response to experience, which underlies cognitive functions of the adult brain such as learning and memory. Using this knowledge, her research team aims to elucidate the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying neurodevelopmental disorders and neurodegenerative diseases. Her research efforts are also directed at identifying drug leads for these brain disorders from traditional Chinese medicines. PHOTO COURTESY OF HKUST

Jens Lykke-Andersen is a professor in the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of California, San Diego. His group studies mechanisms of eukaryotic gene regulation at the level of mRNA translation and degradation, including mRNA quality control pathways. Jens completed his PhD at the University of Copenhagen with Roger Garrett, where he studied RNA splicing in archaea. He then did his postdoctoral training with Jan Christiansen at the University of Copenhagen and subsequently with Joan Steitz at Yale University studying translational regulation and mRNA quality control in human cells. Jens was Assistant and Associate Professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, from 2001 until he moved to the University of California, San Diego, in 2009. PHOTO COURTESY OF KATIE LEE/UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO

Elior Peles is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Molecular Cell Biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. His research focuses on the biology of Schwann cells and oligodendrocytes, the myelinating glial cells of the peripheral and central nervous system, respectively. He obtained his PhD at the Weizmann Institute, where he identified neuregulin as a ligand for the ErbB tyrosine kinase receptors. During his postdoctoral studies at Sugen, Inc., he focused on the identification of receptor tyrosine phosphatases and cell adhesion molecules that mediate axon–glia interactions. His group is studying how glial cells recognize and wrap axons with myelin to enable rapid and efficient conduction of nerve impulses. His laboratory is also studying how myelinating glia control the molecular organization of the axonal membrane, which is required for the normal function of myelinated nerves. These studies have led to the identification of several cell adhesion systems that form specific intercellular contact sites along the longitudinal axis of the myelin unit. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE

Jeremy Reiter is an associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco. Jeremy was a postdoctoral fellow with Bill Skarnes, with whom he worked on gene editing technology and mammalian development. Work from the Reiter laboratory has contributed to the understanding of primary cilia as critical mediators of intercellular signals during development. Their work also has shown that cancer cells can be ciliated and addicted to their cilia for proliferative signals. More recently, the Reiter laboratory has explored the composition and function of the transition zone, a region between the basal body and cilium. The transition zone promotes ciliogenesis and controls ciliary composition in a tissue-specific manner. The Reiter laboratory has shown that problems in ciliary composition disrupt ciliary signaling and cause human ciliopathies, including Meckel and Joubert syndromes. PHOTO COURTESY OF MICHAEL WINOKUR

Patrik Verstreken earned his PhD in Developmental Biology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX, with Hugo Bellen, for studying modes and mechanisms of synaptic vesicle recycling. Transitioning to his postdoc, Patrik conducted large-scale genetic screens in fruit flies, discovering new components that regulate synaptic function and elucidating how mitochondria regulate vesicle transport at synapses. Patrik is currently a professor at KU Leuven in the Department of Human Genetics and is a group leader at the VIB Center for the Biology of Disease, Belgium. Using genetics, electron microscopy, electrophysiology, and imaging, his current research group uses fruit flies and human neurons differentiated from embryonic stem cells to study how synapses maintain neurotransmitter release and how this process is deregulated in Parkinson’s disease. PHOTO COURTESY OF VIB CENTER