Amy S. Gladfelter (born April 27, 1974) is an American quantitative

cell biologist Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living and ...

who is interested in understanding fundamental mechanisms of cell organization. She was a Professor of Biology and the Associate Chair for Diversity Initiatives at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

, before moving to Department of Cell Biology at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

. She investigates

cell cycle The cell cycle, or cell-division cycle, is the series of events that take place in a cell that cause it to divide into two daughter cells. These events include the duplication of its DNA (DNA replication) and some of its organelles, and subs ...

control and the

septin Septins are a group of guanosine triphosphate, GTP-molecular binding, binding proteins gene expression, expressed in all eukaryote, eukaryotic cells except plants. Different septins form protein complexes with each other. These complexes can furt ...

cytoskeleton. She is also affiliated with the

Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center The UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center is a cancer research and treatment center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. One of 52 National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers in the United States, its clini ...

and is a fellow of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA. Gladfelter studies the spatial organization of

multinucleate Multinucleate cells (also known as multinucleated or polynuclear cells) are eukaryotic cells that have more than one nucleus per cell, i.e., multiple nuclei share one common cytoplasm. Mitosis in multinucleate cells can occur either in a coordinat ...

cells, also called

syncytia A syncytium (; plural syncytia; from Greek: σύν ''syn'' "together" and κύτος ''kytos'' "box, i.e. cell") or symplasm is a multinucleate cell which can result from multiple cell fusions of uninuclear cells (i.e., cells with a single nucleus) ...

, which are cells with many nuclei that share a common

cytoplasm In cell biology, the cytoplasm is all of the material within a eukaryotic cell, enclosed by the cell membrane, except for the cell nucleus. The material inside the nucleus and contained within the nuclear membrane is termed the nucleoplasm. The ...

. Her lab at Duke University is broadly interested in understanding why syncytia have arisen in diverse contexts within the

tree of life The tree of life is a fundamental archetype in many of the world's mythological, religious, and philosophical traditions. It is closely related to the concept of the sacred tree.Giovino, Mariana (2007). ''The Assyrian Sacred Tree: A History ...

. Syncytial cells are found throughout the human body, including in

bone A bone is a Stiffness, rigid Organ (biology), organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red blood cell, red and white blood cells, store minerals, provid ...

blood Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the c ...

muscle Skeletal muscles (commonly referred to as muscles) are organs of the vertebrate muscular system and typically are attached by tendons to bones of a skeleton. The muscle cells of skeletal muscles are much longer than in the other types of muscl ...

, and

placenta The placenta is a temporary embryonic and later fetal organ that begins developing from the blastocyst shortly after implantation. It plays critical roles in facilitating nutrient, gas and waste exchange between the physically separate mater ...

l tissue, and throughout the natural world, including in

fungi A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...

algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...

and in many animals during their development. Many

tumors A neoplasm () is a type of abnormal and excessive growth of tissue. The process that occurs to form or produce a neoplasm is called neoplasia. The growth of a neoplasm is uncoordinated with that of the normal surrounding tissue, and persists ...

become syncytial, while certain

virus A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1 ...

es, including

SARS-CoV-2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), the respiratory illness responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had a ...

, can induce cells to fuse. Additionally, Gladfelter studies the

assembly Assembly may refer to: Organisations and meetings * Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions * General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...

of the

cytoskeleton and how aberrant septin

structure A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...

affects its function. Her research program uses microscopy, biophysical and genetic approaches to study cell biology.

Education

Amy Gladfelter trained at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

(AB) with

Bonnie Bassler Bonnie Lynn Bassler (born 1962) is an American molecular biologist; the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology and chair of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University; and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. She ha ...

, at

(Ph.D.) with Daniel Lew and at UniBasel Biozentrum (post-doc) with Peter Philippsen before starting her independent career at Dartmouth in the Biological Sciences department in 2006, where she remained until 2016.

Cell biology research

The two main research focuses of the Gladfelter lab are how the cytoplasm is spatially organized and how cells sense their own geometry. Her team uses a variety of model systems to study syncytia, including ''

Ashbya gossypii (also known as Ashbya gossypii) is a filamentous fungus or mold closely related to yeast, but growing exclusively in a filamentous way. It was originally isolated from cotton as a pathogen causing stigmatomycosis by Ashby and Nowell in 1926. T ...

,'' ''

Neurospora crassa ''Neurospora crassa'' is a type of red bread mold of the phylum Ascomycota. The genus name, meaning "nerve spore" in Greek, refers to the characteristic striations on the spores. The first published account of this fungus was from an infestation ...

,''

myotube Myogenesis is the formation of skeletal muscular tissue, particularly during embryonic development. Muscle fibers generally form through the fusion of precursor myoblasts into multinucleated fibers called ''myotubes''. In the early development ...

s and the

syncytiotrophoblast Syncytiotrophoblast (from the Greek 'syn'- "together"; 'cytio'- "of cells"; 'tropho'- "nutrition"; 'blast'- "bud") is the epithelial covering of the highly vascular embryonic placental villi, which invades the wall of the uterus to establish nut ...

of human

to study the architecture of the cytoplasm. Gladfelter is also seeking out new fungal systems derived from the marine environment that are

extremophile An extremophile (from Latin ' meaning "extreme" and Greek ' () meaning "love") is an organism that is able to live (or in some cases thrive) in extreme environments, i.e. environments that make survival challenging such as due to extreme temper ...

s and show morphologic characteristics not found in more conventional model systems. Gladfelter made the discovery that the nuclei of the multinucleate fungus ''Ashbya gossypii'', despite sharing the same

, progress through the

independently. This has led to further work uncovering how liquid-liquid phase separation of RNAs and proteins can permit autonomy among syncytial nuclei and help to establish cell polarity. Recently, the lab has begun examining phase separation in the context of SARS-CoV-2 infection, with a focus on understanding mechanisms of viral packaging. Another area that Gladfelter's lab explores is how cells sense their shape. Gladfelter and her lab have extensively studied the ability of a conserved family of proteins called

s, which localize to areas of the cell that change shape or are highly curved, to sense cell curvature.

Awards and honors

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

(2023) * NSF Post-Doctoral Fellow (2002–2005) * Roche Research Foundation Fellow (2002–2003) * Basil O’Connor Scholar, March of Dimes (2008–2010) * Lemann, Colwin and Spiegel research awards, Marine Biological Lab, Woods Hole, MA (2010, 2011, 2012) * Karen E. Wetterhahn Memorial Award for Distinguished Creative and Scholarly Achievement (2012) * Douglas C. Floren Fellow (2012–2013) * Nikon Fellow, MBL, Woods Hole, MA (2013) * Dartmouth Graduate Advising Mentoring Award (2014) *

American Society for Cell Biology The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) is a professional society that was founded in 1960.2015 WICB Mid-Career Award for Excellence in Research Achievement (2015) * HHMI Faculty Scholar (2016)

Selected works

;On cytoplasmic organization: * * * * * * ;On cell shape and septin assembly: * * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gladfelter, Amy 21st-century American biologists American women biologists 1974 births University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty American cell biologists Princeton University alumni Duke University alumni Scientists from Philadelphia Dartmouth College faculty Living people American women academics 21st-century American women scientists