Centrosome Assembly

Hyman lab postdoc Jeff Woodruff describes the great unknowns of centrosome assembly and his plan of attack. Written and narrated by Jeff Woodruff. Produced by Lisa Dennison.

Phase Transition in Disease

In this video and the accompanying Cell paper, the Tony Hyman and Simon Alberti groups at Max Planck Institute propose an interesting idea that aging cells fail to maintain the liquid phase of ALS-associated protein FUS. The FUS liquid compartment instead forms disease-link solid phase…

Phase Transitions in Cells

Hyman lab postdoc Louise Jawerth tackles the phase transitions that occur within the cytoplasm. Written and narrated by Louise Jawerth. Produced by Lisa Dennison.

Phase separation in cell polarity

In this video abstract, Shamba Saha tells you about his recent publication in Cell, “Polar Positioning of Phase-Separated Liquid Compartments in Cells Regulated by an mRNA Competition Mechanism.” Learn more in the full paper Saha et al. (2016) published in Cell,…

Regulation of centrosome assembly by phosphorylation

In this video abstract, Oliver Wueseke tells you about his recent publication in Biology Open, “Polo-like kinase phosphorylation determines C.elegans centrosome size and density by biasing SPD-5 toward an assembly-competent conformation,” Learn more in the full paper Wueseke et al. (2016)…

Building a synthetic centrosome

The centrosome is a structure in cells which is built every time the cell prepares to divide. In this video abstract, Jeff Woodruff explains how to build a centrosome in a test tube from purified proteins. He found that the centrosome acts like a sponge, which selectively soaks up the proteins…

Microtubule nucleation through phase separation

Cells must build cytoskeleton structures, such as microtubules, where they are locally needed within the cell, but how do they do this? In this video abstract, Amayra Hernández-Vega explains that in a test tube, microtubules can be formed locally through phase separation. She also found that the…