Inke Näthke is a German-British cell biologist. She is Professor of Epithelial Biology at the Department of Cell & Developmental Biology, Interim Dean and Associate Dean for Professional Culture at the School of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. She is known for her work on the role of the

adenomatous polyposis coli Adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) also known as deleted in polyposis 2.5 (DP2.5) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''APC'' gene. The APC protein is a negative regulator that controls beta-catenin concentrations and interacts with E-c ...

(APC) protein in

colorectal cancer Colorectal cancer (CRC), also known as bowel cancer, colon cancer, or rectal cancer, is the development of cancer from the colon or rectum (parts of the large intestine). Signs and symptoms may include blood in the stool, a change in bowel m ...

Early life and education

Näthke grew up in the northern German town of Itzehoe. She first came to the US as an au pair. After spending a year in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...

, she realized that the educational system in the US would allow her to learn about multiple topics, instead of focusing on a single discipline. Finding this attractive, she enrolled at

San Jose State University San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a public university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the oldest public university on the West Coast and the founding campus of the California State University (CSU) sys ...

, initially as a pre-med student but then switching to biochemistry. After a year at a small biotechnology company, she attended graduate school at the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It cond ...

, where she studied the structure of clathrin in the laboratory of

Frances Brodsky Frances Brodsky is an American cell biologist. She is known for her work on clathrin and its role in the function of the immune system. She is a professor of cell biology and the director of the Division of Biosciences (part of the Faculty of L ...

. She then moved to Stanford for postdoctoral training in the laboratory of William J. Nelson. In her postdoctoral work she established a link between the

(APC)

tumor suppressor A tumor suppressor gene (TSG), or anti-oncogene, is a gene that regulates a cell during cell division and replication. If the cell grows uncontrollably, it will result in cancer. When a tumor suppressor gene is mutated, it results in a loss or red ...

and cell movement mediated by the

cytoskeleton The cytoskeleton is a complex, dynamic network of interlinking protein filaments present in the cytoplasm of all cells, including those of bacteria and archaea. In eukaryotes, it extends from the cell nucleus to the cell membrane and is compos ...

. She then performed a short second postdoc in the laboratory of

Tim Mitchison Timothy John Mitchison is a cell biologist and systems biologist and Hasib Sabbagh Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School in the United States. He is known for his discovery, with Marc Kirschner, of dynamic instability in microt ...

Career

In 1998 Näthke was recruited to the University of Dundee as a lecturer in the Cell and Evolutionary Biology Department. A core hypothesis in her work is that the APC protein is involved in

cell motility Motility is the ability of an organism to move independently, using metabolic energy. Definitions Motility, the ability of an organism to move independently, using metabolic energy, can be contrasted with sessility, the state of organisms th ...

and

cell division Cell division is the process by which a parent cell (biology), cell divides into two daughter cells. Cell division usually occurs as part of a larger cell cycle in which the cell grows and replicates its chromosome(s) before dividing. In eukar ...

through its effects on

microtubule Microtubules are polymers of tubulin that form part of the cytoskeleton and provide structure and shape to eukaryotic cells. Microtubules can be as long as 50 micrometres, as wide as 23 to 27 nm and have an inner diameter between 11 an ...

s. She discovered that loss of APC leads directly to

chromosome instability Chromosomal instability (CIN) is a type of genomic instability in which chromosomes are unstable, such that either whole chromosomes or parts of chromosomes are duplicated or deleted. More specifically, CIN refers to the increase in rate of additio ...

and polyploidy by affecting the spindle checkpoint. In work on mouse and human gut stem cells, she found that these cells normally divide with their mitotic spindle in a particular orientation. This orientation is lost in precancerous colon that is deficient in APC function. Näthke has exploited this change in tissue organization to develop a new way to monitor very early changes that may lead to cancer, using microultrasound. She developed a system for using the slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum to study the effects of the APC on cell migration. She has commented that since APC is an adaptor protein with "its fingers in many pies in the cell", loss of APC has many effects that push cells closer to becoming cancerous. She is co-editor of a book on APC Proteins.

Awards

* 2004: ASCB Women in Cell Biology Junior Award * 2004: Cancer Research UK Senior Cancer Research Fellowship * 2022: Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

References

External links

Nathke group website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nathke, Inke 1961 births Living people Cell biologists University of California, San Francisco alumni 21st-century women scientists Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh San Jose State University alumni