The rockefeller university

Event Details

Type

Friday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Ruth Lehmann, Ph.D., Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Professor of Cell Biology, chair, department of cell biology, director, Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, NYU School of Medicine; investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Speaker bio(s)

Mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) are a major cause of maternally inherited human disease. Mothers often contain a mixture, heteroplasmy, of mutant and wild-type mtDNA and transmit varying amounts of each to their progeny. Dr. Lehmann’s laboratory uses Drosophila to study how mitochondria segregate into the primordial germ cells (PGCs) and how mitochondrial function is regulated during the germ line life cycle. They have identified the cellular mechanism that anchors mitochondria to the oocyte posterior. Asymmetric mitochondrial segregation into PGCs ensures maintenance mtDNA diversity from generation to generation. In the adult, continued egg production relies on the balanced regulation of germ line stem cell (GSC) self-renewal and differentiation. In a transcriptome-wide in vivo RNAi screen, Dr. Lehmann’s laboratory uncovered a critical role for the mitochondrial ATP synthase complex in GSC differentiation. ATP synthase promotes the developmentally regulated maturation of the inner mitochondrial membrane into elaborate cristae during cyst differentiation independent of oxidative phosphorylation. 

 

Dr. Lehmann’s research focuses on germ cells, the only cells in the body able to give rise to a new generation. Her laboratory uses systematic, unbiased genetic approaches and different imaging modalities in Drosophila to understand how germ cells are specified in the early embryo and how they maintain the potential for totipotency while differentiating into egg and sperm in the adult.

 

A native of Cologne, Germany, Dr. Lehmann received her Ph.D. from the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Genetics in 1985, where she was in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard. After completing her postdoctoral training at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, England, Dr. Lehmann joined the Whitehead Institute and the faculty of MIT in 1988. Since 1996, she has been at NYU School of Medicine, where she is currently the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Professor of Cell Biology and chair of the department of cell biology. She also directs the Skirball Institute and the Helen and Martin Kimmel Center for Stem Cell Biology.

 

Dr. Lehmann is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and EMBO. She is the recipient of a Conklin Medal of the Society of Developmental Biology in 2011 and a Merit Award from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in 2013.

Open to

Public

Host

Hermann Steller, Ph.D.

Reception

Refreshments, 3:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m., Abby Lounge

Contact

Linda Hanssler

Phone

(212) 327-7714

Sponsor

Linda Hanssler
(212) 327-7714
lhanssler@rockefeller.edu

Readings

http://librarynews.rockefeller.edu/?p=4047