The hallmarks of cancer are well established.  But how does a normal cell become cancerous in the first place?  It is now clear that dysregulation of a subcellular structure called the centrosome can trigger tumor formation and metastasis. My lab combines live-cell microscopy, synthetic biology, and nano-scale materials science techniques to reveal the control mechanisms that prevent centrosome dysregulation in healthy cells.

My research career began at the University of Texas at Austin, where I studied tissue development in leech embryos. During my Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, I used genome analysis and live-cell microscopy to dissect the mechanisms of cell division in baker’s yeast. For my post-doc at the MPI-CBG in Dresden, Germany, I developed a molecular toolkit that allowed me to build synthetic centrosomes in a test tube.

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