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Previous Lab Members - what they did and where they are
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Hong-Guo Yu, Ph.D 2000
Hong-Guo developed a live imaging method for meiocytes and, along with other techniques, showed that neocentromeres move 50% faster than normal centromeres and interact with microtubules in a novel way. He also published the first study of spindle checkpoint proteins in plants, and showed that kinetochores are functionally redundant. Hong-Guo received research awards from both the Department and the University. Dr. Yu was a postdoc in Douglas Koshland's group and is now an Assistant Professor at Florida State University.
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Evelyn Hiatt, Ph.D. 2000
Evelyn discovered and carefully characterized six new mutants of meiotic drive, many of which are large deficiencies. These and other data demonstrated that meiotic drive is conferred by at least four different genes on Ab10. She also showed that the two classes of knob repeats are independently regulated as neocentromeres, suggesting that satellites and their binding proteins co-evolve to assure their preferential recovery. Dr. Hiatt is now an Assisant Professor at Kentucky Wesleyan College.
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Joshua Marshall, M.S. 2001
Josh developed a unique application of flourescense resonance energy transfer (FRET) for the analysis of kinetochore structure. Using our set of kinetochore antibodies, he demonstrated that the maize kinetochore is composed of two major subdomains: the inner containing centromeric DNA and CENPC, and the outer containing MAD2. Josh also carried out the first experiments showing that CENH3 is phosphorylated. He is now with Cardinal Health as a nuclear pharmacist.
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Carolyn Lawrence, Ph.D. 2003
Carolyn was co-advised by Dr. Russell Malmberg. She took the novel approach of using maximum likelihood methods to construct a phylogeny of kinesin superfamily. Her phylogeny, and a personal ambition to make it stick, ultimately lead to the creation and adoption of a standarized kinesin nomenclature. She was also the first to show that angiosperms lack dynein. Carolyn blazed her own trail and made a major impact on the kinesin field. Carolyn worked as a postdoc with Volker Brendel, and is now Director of www.maizegdb.org at Iowa State University. Here is Carolyn's lab web page.
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Rebecca Mroczek, Ph.D. 2003
Becky used a variety of molecular techniques and a previously characterized set of Ab10 deficiencies, Becky mapped the Ab10 chromosome as it relates to N10. Her detailed RFLP map demonstrated that the the meiotic drive system includes at least two large inversions, and that the primary drive functions map to novel (alien) chromatin. She also carried out a FISH study of retrotransposon density on Ab10, which supported the view that the haplotype is ancient. Becky is now an Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith.
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Xiaolan Zhang, Ph.D. 2007
Xiaolan was co-advised by Dr. Michael Scanlon. She spent a total of ~2 years in the Dawe lab, first on a long rotation where she completed a major paper on the phosphorylation of maize CENH3, and later when her primary PI, Dr. Scanlon, left for Cornell. She is skilled with a microscope and helped train many students in the art of sample preparation and analysis. Xiaolan is now a postdoc with Elliot Meyerowitz pursuing her interest in plant developmental biology.
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Sarah Rushing, M.S. 2008
Sarah was a pioneer of Arabidopsis genetics in our lab. She assayed the genetics and expression of three central kinetochore proteins, and developed a live-cell system for viewing YFP-stained kinetochore proteins in live cells. Others in the lab are successfully following in her footsteps, combining the power of Arabidopsis genetics with maize cytology. Sarah is now working in the Florida Department of Agriculture as a liason between lab researchers and citrus growers. |
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Yaqing Du, Ph.D. 2008
Yaqing studied two kinetochore proteins, NDC80 and CENPC. She used quantitative microscopy to show that NDC80 is constitutive protein, placing it in the 'foundation' protein category for the first time. Then focussing on CENPC and biochemical methods, she identified the CENPC DNA binding motif, showed that the motif is required for efficient CENPC localization in vivo, and importantly, demonstrated that single stranded RNA is a cofactor in the CENPC-DNA binding reaction. These data allowed her to ascribe a function to chromatin-bound RNA - arguing that RNA is a part of a structural template that stabilizes CENPC and identifies centromeres. Yaqing is now a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Rhoma Ohi at Vanderbilt pursuing her interests in kinetochore biology.
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Xuexian Li, Ph.D. 2009
Xuexian began his work on the phospho-CENH3 project, performing key protein blot analyses and detailed localization experiments. He then chose central kinetochore protein MIS12 as his primary focus. Among his accomplishments were the generation of three different antibodies, the completion of two major RNAi projects, and a thorough cytological analysis of MIS12 knock-down mutants. His data lead to the important discovery that kinetochores themselves initiate the specialized segregation of meiosis I, staying closely fused during prometaphase I and enforcing the sister chromatid co-orientation event. His work was well received and published in a major journal. Xuexian is now in the laboratory of Dr. Scott Filler at UCLA, continuing his work on cell division.
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Jinghua Shi, Ph.D. 2009
Jinghua began with a study of chromatin modifications on pachytene chromosomes, providing a global view of the maize epigenetic profile. She then mastered a difficult procedure that combines chromatin immunoprecipitation with transposon display, allowing her to map sequences that interact with centromeric histone H3 (CENH3). The output was >200 within-centromere markers. She the proceeded to use them in diversity analyses, assaying complex genetic phenomena such as centromere linkage disequilibrium and haplotype diversity. She also discovered that Zea luxurians is rich in CentC, and helped develop a model for how CentC has driven maize centromere evolution. Jinghua showed academic excellence and shifted the lab focus in fundamental ways.
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Christopher Topp, Ph.D. 2009 (has the title, but has not left yet!)
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Cathy Zhong, Postdoctoral Fellow
Cathy was co-advised by Dr. Wayne Parrott. Cathy worked in the lab from the Spring of 2000 through early 2003. She was the first person on our newly-funded (first round) Plant Genome Grant. Among other things, Cathy developed the maize CENH3-mediated chromatin immunoprecipitation technique that has be instrumental in our recent progress. She also developed constructs for maize and rice transformation, helped with the CENH3 phosphorylation study, and carried out the initial experiments showing that centromeric RNA is immunoprecipitated along with centromeric chromatin. Cathy is now employed as Research Scientist at Dupont, Wilmington, Delaware.
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Juliana Melo, technician
Juliana worked as an undergraduate-then-technician from Fall 2001 through the summer of 2004. She had a major impact on the productivity of the lab. She helped Becky finish her Ab10 mapping, mapped the maize CENH3 gene using oat-maize addition lines, cloned and sequenced hundreds of CentC repeats, and - most impressively - cloned the oat Cenh3 gene by degenerate PCR. Juliana went on to the Medical College of Georgia and is now an M.D. pursuing her residency in Hawaii.
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Amy Luce, technician
Amy started as a technician in January 2005 and moved on to Mercer Medical School in August of 2006. She is a PCR master. Favorite quote: "that just goes to show you how easily PCR is intimidated". She developed transposon junction mapping and moved the lab further into genomics. Her no-fear approach allowed her to break the single copy ChIP barrier in our lab, and with the newly-developed junction mapping strategy, pave the way to mapping all ten maize centromeres with precision. She finished two papers in a short year and a half. Amy is now studying to becoming a doctor at Mercer University.
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