News and Publications

2002 DEPARTMENT HIGHLIGHTS

The work of four scientists in TSRI's Department of Cell Biology contributed to three of the top-ten breakthroughs of the year, according to the journal Science. Professor Steve Kay, Ph.D., who directs TSRI's Institute for Childhood and Neglected Diseases, conducted breakthrough work on "a new class of light-responsive cells in the retinas of mammals." Assistant Professor Ardem Patapoutian, Ph.D., was mentioned for his work, which "helped explain why spicy food feels hot, and breath mints give the mouth a chill." And Professor John Yates, Ph.D., and Assistant Professor Elizabeth Winzeler, Ph.D., both contributed separate research in support of the publication of "genome sequence drafts for organisms with major agriculture and public health relevance for the developing world." (See Research Highlights, next page.)

The Center for Integrative Molecular Biosciences (CIMBio) opened in January. It recently received funding as a National Institutes of Health National Resource Center for Automated Molecular Imaging led by Associate Professor Bridget Carragher, Ph.D., Associate Professor Clint Potter, B.S., and Professor Ron Milligan, Ph.D.

Associate Professor Martin Friedlander, M.D., Ph.D., Professor Paul Schimmel, Ph.D. (Molecular Biology), and a group of TSRI researchers, who recently discovered a potent inhibitor of angiogenesis, a process implicated in cancer and one of the leading causes of blindness, were awarded a five-year, $9.6-million grant from the National Eye Institute to study this inhibitor further and develop ways to use it in patients.

Associate Professor Benjamin F. Cravatt, Ph.D., was selected as one of the top 100 innovators under the age of 35 in a special report released by Technology Review.

In a sweep for TSRI scientists at the American Society of Cell Biology meeting, Cravatt received the ASCB-Promega Award for Early Career Life Scientists, and Assistant Professor Clare Waterman-Storer, Ph.D., was named the recipient of the ASCB Women in Cell Biology Jr. Career Recognition Award.

Professor and Department Chair Sandra L. Schmid, Ph.D., won a Pinnacle Award from UCSD Athena, in recognition of fostering personal and professional change through inclusion, risk taking, education, recognition, and diversity of thought.

Patapoutian was one of five Damon Runyon Scholars selected this year by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.

The Vascular Biology Department became a division of the Department of Cell Biology in 2002. The merger broadens the spectrum of research that takes places in Cell Biology and strengthens the department's commitment to research with important health implications.

2002 RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Kay demonstrated that the gene Opn4, which codes for the protein Melanopsin, is the elusive pigment gene that captures light and keeps your body tuned to a daily cycle. Finding the key protein in the eye that sends signals to the body's internal clock has implications for sleep disorders, jet-lag, and shift work.

In addition, Kay and Research Associate Marcelo Yanovsky, Ph.D., described how a plant grown in their laboratory uses two sets of proteins to detect the seasons so that it can flower at the right time. And by tinkering with those proteins, the scientists were able to make the plant flower at will.

Patapoutian identified and isolated a protein, called TRPM8, that mediates the body's ability to sense cold and menthol through the skin. TRPM8 is the first cold-sensing molecule that has ever been identified and may be an important basic target for pain-modulating drugs. He also identified and cloned the first-known gene that makes skin cells able to sense warm temperatures.

Yates led a team of scientists who identified the proteins in the most deadly form of the malaria pathogen, the single-celled Plasmodium falciparum. This accomplishment caps the completion of a major six-year $17.9-million effort that sequenced the entire Plasmodium falciparum genome.

Winzeler and scientists at Harvard University and the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation found

a way to use a relatively new but readily available technology to quickly detect markers in the DNA of the most deadly type of malaria pathogen. The technology could enable scientists and public health workers to identify a particular strain of malariaand determine whether it is drug resistant.

A promising target for the development of pain medication was provided by the Cravatt lab, which solved the structure of an enzyme called fatty acid amide hydrolase that modulates central nervous system functions such as pain perception, cognition, feeding, sleep, and locomotor activity.

Waterman-Storer, Professor Velia Fowler, Ph.D., and Professor Mark Ginsberg, M.D., have unraveled three critical aspects of how cells regulate and mobilize their cytoskeletons to drive cell migration. Waterman-Storer identified a kinase that ensures the coordinated assembly and disassembly of the two major cytoskeletal elements, actin filaments and microtubules. Fowler identified a protein, TmodE, which controls actin assembly at the leading edgeof migrating cells. Ginsberg revealed new mechanisms of crosstalk between cell surface integrins that mediate cell attachment with regulation of actin assembly. Cell migrationis critical for wound repair, angiogenesis, development, and cancer metastasis.