Past News

April 2024, New Faculty: Sarvenaz Sarabipour

Sarvenaz Sarabipour joined CCAM and the Cell Biology Department as an assistant professor.  Her research in computational systems biology focuses on developing experimental and computational methods to study mechanisms of signal transduction in cells and tissues. She is also active in initiatives to improve  research  culture.

Trafficking dynamics in human endothelial cells.

March 2024, New Faculty: Abhijit Deb Roy

March 2024. Abhijit Deb Roy

Abhijit Del Roy joined CCAM and the Cell Biology Department as an assistant professor. His research concerns molecular signaling pathways and cytoskeletal dynamics involved in mechanobiology and cell migration. Directional cell migration plays critical roles during physiological processes such as development, angiogenesis and immune response, whereas dysregulation of cell migration is observed in pathologies such as cancer metastasis and atherosclerosis.

HeLa cells immunostained for alpha-Tubulin (gray), acetylated alpha-Tubulin (orange) and DNA (blue).

February 2024, Inaba lab publication in Nature Communications

Congratulations to Mayu Inaba and her lab for their publication in Nature Communications!

2024 Stem Cell differentiation figure

Ridwan, Twillie, Poursaeid, Beard, Bener, Antel, Cowan , Matsuda , and Inaba 

Diffusible fraction of niche BMP ligand safeguards stem-cell differentiation

Nature Communications (2024) 15, 116

December 2023, Vos and Page Publication in Nature

Congratulations to cell biology department members Margaret Vos and Rebecca Page on their contributions to a publication in Nature!

Padi, Vos, Godik, Fuller, Kruse, Hein, Nilsson, Kelker, Page, and Peti.

Cryo-EM structures of PP2A:B55-FAM122A and PP2A:B55-ARPP19.

Nature (2024) 625:195.

 

December 2023, Berlin Memorial Lecture

July 2023, National Honor for Medical School’s Mark Terasaki

Mark R. Terasaki, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Cell Biology on July 18, 2023. (Photo provided by Mark Terasaki/UConn Health Center Photo)

Congratulations to associate professor Mark Teraski, now a fellow of the American Society for Cell Biology! Dr. Terasaki is among a cohort of 19 new fellows elected by their peers. They will be formally recognized at the ASCB's joint meeting with the European Molecular Biology Organization, in December in Boston.

July 2023, Congratulations Corie!!

 

May, 2023. In Memorial of Dr. Alan Fein

We are sorry to share the sad news that Dr. Alan Fein, Professor Emeritus at UConn Health, passed away on May 1, 2023 after a long and courageous battle with cancer.

Dr. Fein joined the Health Center faculty in the Department of Physiology (now the Department of Cell Biology) in 1987 and retired in 2017. He is internationally recognized for his discoveries about the function of inositol trisphosphate in cellular signaling, and for his studies of the physiology of photoreceptors and blood cells.

He also contributed importantly to medical student education at UConn Health. He served for 20 years as a facilitator for Problem Based Learning, and designed and taught a medical school elective on Pain. He is the author or editor of several books, including an introductory textbook on the neuroscience of pain, which he decided to make freely available online.

 

Dr. Fein was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and received a B.S. in electrical engineering from City College of New York, a master's from Columbia University and Ph.D.'s from Johns Hopkins Medical and Engineering schools. Prior to moving to UConn Health, he was a faculty member at Boston University and the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole Massachusetts. He is survived by his wife Marlene Leiner Fein, his 3 children and 5 grandchildren.

His obituary can be found here.

Dr. Fein

April, 2021. Laurinda Jaffe Elected to the National Academy of Sciences

Laurinda Jaffe induction into NAS

December, 2020. New Faculty: Rebecca Page

Model
SDS22 (left) binds PP1 (right) and maintains it in a fully inactive state until holoenzyme formation, preventing unregulated dephosphorylation by PP1.

Rebecca Page joined the Cell Biology Department in December 2020, as a full professor. Her research concerns how we sense and react to our environment which is communicated in the cell by vast networks of highly dynamic, interacting proteins. These interactions are regulated in both space and time, and it is this tight regulation that allows signals from outside of the cell to be rapidly and precisely transmitted to the nucleus leading to the appropriate, and healthy, cellular response. We integrate structural biology, cell biology, genetics and biochemistry in order to understand how these signals in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes are communicated in the cell at atomic resolution.

September, 2020. New Faculty: Hideyuki Oguro

mechanisms that regulate hematopoietic stem cells: modelHideyuki Oguro will join the Cell Biology Department in September 2020, as an assistant professor, with a joint appointment in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. His research concerns mechanisms that regulate hematopoietic stem cells, and investigates how in conditions where more blood is needed, hormonal signals stimulate the proliferation and mobilization of these stem cells to make more blood cells. In a recent paper (J. Clinical Investigation, 2017, 127: 3392-2401), Oguro and colleagues demonstrated that two endogenous estrogen receptor ligands, estradiol and 27-hydroxycholesterol, differentially induce proliferation and mobilization of hematopoietic stem cells, respectively. This hormonal regulation is particularly important during pregnancy when maternal blood expands rapidly (figure adopted from Frontiers in Endocrinology, 2019, 10:204), and can lead to new strategies to promote hematopoietic regeneration and to enhance mobilization of stem cells into the bloodstream for transplantation. An additional focus of Oguro's research is to generate hematopoietic stem cells from human induced pluripotent stem cells by mimicking their developmental process.

April, 2017. Cell Biology/Center for Vascular Biology Retreat at the Pond House

Retreat photo

April, 2017. New Faculty: Mayu Inaba

Inaba Lab image
3D reconstruction of a Drosophila testicular niche, illustrating how microtubule nanotubes (green) penetrate into neighboring niche cells (red).

Mayu Inaba joined the Cell Biology Department in April 2017, as an assistant professor. Her research concerns signaling between adult stem cells and the specialized microenvironments, called niches, that maintain stem cells in an undifferentiated and self-renewing state. In a recent paper (Nature, 2015; 523: 329-332), Inaba and colleagues demonstrated that microtubule-based nanotubes, which extend from stem cells into the cells of the niche, contribute to the short-range nature of this signaling.