Call for papers - Cell biology of Dictyostelium

Cynthia Kay Damer, PhD, Professor of Biology, Central Michigan University, USA

Dr Cynthia Damer is a Professor of Biology at Central Michigan University. She has a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Virginia where she studied the protein synaptagmin involved in neurotransmitter release. As a postdoctoral fellow at Duke University, Dr Damer studied the endocytic protein clathrin using the model organism, Dictyostelium discoideum. She has been using Dictyostelium as a model to study basic cellular processes for over 25 years. Her research focuses on copines, a family of calcium-dependent lipid binding proteins. At CMU, Cynthia teaches classes in cell biology, microscopy, neuroscience, and biotechnology. 
 

Robert J. Huber, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Biology; Director, Molecules, Cells & Systems Research Centre, Trent University, Canada

Dr Robert Huber is a cell and molecular biologist who uses Dictyostelium discoideum as a model system for studying fundamental cellular and developmental processes. Current research in his lab focuses on lysosomal function, protein trafficking and secretion, and signal transduction, with a specific focus on how these processes are dysregulated in Batten disease (a form of neurodegeneration that affects all ages and ethnicities but primarily impacts children and adolescents).
 

Paul Steimle, PhD, University of North Carolina Greensboro, USA

In his research at UNCG, Dr Steimle strives to gain further insight into how cells are able to achieve highly coordinated changes in shape that are required for critical cellular processes such as chemotaxis, cytokinesis, intracellular trafficking, and multicellular development. To this end, the social amoeba, Dictyostelium discoideum, is used as a model system for examining the molecular pathways regulating the ability of myosin II to mediate contraction of actin filaments in the highly dynamic context of a nonmuscle cell. 
 
The long term goal of his research program is to provide a clearer understanding of the molecular events driving cellular contractile processes since defects in the regulation of these events, as occur in cancer cells, can lead to uncontrolled cell multiplication (tumor formation) and unregulated cell migration observed with metastasis.