After a Diploma in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Hamburg, Germany, I joined the lab of Gero Steinberg at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and later at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg. For my PhD project I studied the microtubule cytoskeleton in the fungus Ustilago maydis, concentrating in particular on the dynamic re-organisation of microtubules during the cell cycle and on intracellular transport by the molecular motors dynein and kinesin, which carry traffic along microtubules. I then moved as a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Emmy Noether programme of the German Science Foundation (DFG) to the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology in Edinburgh, where I worked with Andreas Merdes on the microtubule cytoskeleton in differentiating muscle cells. In 2007, after three years in Edinburgh, I started my own lab at the Marie Curie Research Institute (MCRI) in Oxted, Surrey. When the MCRI closed in 2010, I moved with my colleagues Rob Cross and Andrew McAinsh to the University of Warwick to found the Centre for Mechanochemical Cell Biology. Research in my lab focusses on the organisation of microtubules and intracellular transport with a recent focus on the regulation of motor activity and coordination of opposite polarity motors. We use quantitative live cell imaging, imaging-based in vitro reconstitution experiments and single molecule imaging and force spectroscopy. I received a Lister Institute Research Prize in 2013 and Wellcome Investigator Awards in Science in 2016 and 2022. I am a Professor at Warwick Medical School since 2020 and the Director of Warwick Bio-Medical Sciences since 2022.
Scientific field: Biochemistry, Cell biology
Microscopy background: Image Analysis
Posted by Anne Straube, on 2 September 2022
