Cytoskeletal organisation and cell signaling responses to stress

Interested individuals must follow Steps 1, 2 and 3 at this link on how to apply
http://www.ed.ac.uk/biology/prospective-students/postgraduate/pgr/how-to-apply


In order to maintain their stereotypic organisation, cells must be able to respond to internal cues and also coordinate responses to external stresses to achieve homeostasis at the level of the entire cell. Our laboratory studies eukaryotic cellular organisation, with a particular focus on the microtubule and actin cytoskeleton systems and cell polarity regulation. We use the unicellular fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe as a model organism, because of its decreased complexity relative to mammalian cells, as well as its amenability to combined genetics, microscopy, and biochemistry approaches.

Recently we have discovered an unexpected close link between stress-activated protein kinase signaling and cell polarity (Mutavchiev et al., in press). Because of the intimate associations between cell polarity regulators and the cytoskeleton, we are interested in investigating how activation of stress pathways affects regulation of the cytoskeleton. The PhD project will follow an interdisciplinary approach to this question, to identify molecular controls on the cytoskeleton via stress signaling.

Methods used in the PhD project would include: classical and molecular genetics (including genome engineering); live-cell microscopy using fluorescent-tagged proteins (this is one of our strengths—there are several different state-of-the art microscopes in our facility); and biochemistry and mass spectrometry/proteomic methods. PhD projects involving yeast genetics and cell biology are a great way to begin a scientific research career, because a wealth of methods are learned and applied in the context of hypothesis-driven research, and hypotheses are constantly challenged by new results requiring rigorous logical evaluation.

We are a vibrant and international group of PhD students and postdocs. For further information about the laboratory, visit http://sawin.bio.ed.ac.uk/ , http://www.wcb.ed.ac.uk/research/sawin