Amy Gladfelter

Gladfelter was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 27, 1974. She grew up in Windermere, Florida, and graduated from West Orange High School in 1992. It was during high school that Gladfelter became interested in biology, primarily due to exploring the natural world that the Florida countryside had to offer.[21] Gladfelter attended and graduated from Princeton University with a B.A. in Molecular Biology in 1996. During her undergraduate summers, she spent extensive time doing research with Simon Lewis at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Toby Bradshaw at the University of Washington, and later Bonnie Bassler at Princeton.[22] She then attended Duke University where she worked in Danny Lew's lab, exploring how cells polarize and CDC42 signaling. In 2001 she graduated from Duke University with a Ph.D. in Genetics. Following her time at Duke, she conducted post-doctoral research on the control of nuclear division in multinucleate fungal cells with Peter Philippsen at the University of Basel Biozentrum in Basel, Switzerland.[23]

Following her post doctorate work in Switzerland, Gladfelter returned to the United States and began work at Dartmouth College in 2006. She had her own lab which dealt with the arrangement of cells in time and space, and the organization of the septin cytoskeleton in cells. Her lab combined live cell microscopy and computational approaches with biochemistry and genetics analyses.[24] One of the most significant discoveries Gladfelter made was asynchronous nuclear division in multinucleated cells. This discovery came in Ashbya gossypii cells, where nuclei that occupied the same cytoplasm progress through the cell cycle independently of each other.[25] During her time at Dartmouth, Gladfelter also taught a full load of courses while she served as an Associate Professor of Biological Sciences. Additionally, she mentored undergraduate and graduate students, as well as post doctorates in her lab. Her leadership earned her the Graduate Student Mentoring Award from Dartmouth in 2014.[2]

A few years after starting at Dartmouth, Gladfelter began to collaborate with Rudolf Oldenbourg and Tomomi Tani during summers at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.[26] One of her main focuses at the MBL is investigating the septin cytoskeleton, and in particular the “orientation and dynamics of individual septin molecules with higher-order structures.”[27] In 2016, Gladfelter left Dartmouth and began working at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), where she currently serves as an Associate Professor of Biology.[4] As before at Dartmouth, her lab at UNC employs both students and post-doctoral trainees to further investigate how cells are organized in time and space. The two main concepts she covers are how the cytoplasm is spatially organized and how cells sense their own geometry. Her team uses “large multinucleate cells such as fungi, mammalian cancer lines, muscle, and placenta” to study the architecture of the cytoplasm. It is these cells that are of interest because of the challenges they face in cell division and growth due to their size.[28] Additionally, multinucleate cells are common in tumors, making her lab work extremely relevant to understanding mechanisms of cancer formation and persistence. Recent discoveries include the aggregation of proteins that form liquid-like droplets within the cytosol, an example of biological phase separation (liquid-liquid phase separation).

The second area Gladfelter's lab explores is how cells sense their shape.[8] Because septins localize to areas of the cell that change shape or are highly curved, they are the proteins Gladfelter and her team examine. Septins are involved in many processes that occur in eukaryotic cells, including cytokinesis, formation of diffusion barriers to compartmentalize the plasma membrane,[29][30][31] and regulation of cellular processes such as the release of neurotransmitters and microtubule dynamics.[32] Because the septin cytoskeleton has a fundamental role in various cellular processes, understanding more about it can lead to a better understanding of the cell itself. Gladfelter has “discovered how septins polymerize with [her] establishment of the first reconstitution system that can analyze septin dynamics on supported lipid bilayers.”[28] Aberrant septin function has been linked to many different types of tumors, making Gladfelter's research useful in understanding septin's impact on malignant cells.[33]

• NSF Post-Doctoral Fellow (2002–2005)[34]
• 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)[35][36][37]
• Karen E. Wetterhahn Memorial Award for Distinguished Creative and Scholarly Achievement (2012)[3]
• Douglas C. Floren Fellow (2012–2013)
• Nikon Fellow, MBL, Woods Hole, MA (2013)[26]
• Dartmouth Graduate Advising Mentoring Award (2014)[2]
• American Society for Cell Biology, 2015 WICB Mid-Career Award for Excellence in Research Achievement (2015)
• HHMI Faculty Scholar (2016)[1]

Gladfelter is married to Mark Borsuk, an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Duke University.[38][39] They live in North Carolina with their two children. She returns to Woods Hole, MA every summer with her family to enjoy Cape Cod and continue her work at the MBL.[27] During her busy days, she still makes time to take walks and enjoy the natural world around her. She credits her accomplishments largely in part to the support and love received from her parents.[40]