NEWS

June 2016: Luke Johnson earns his bachelor’s degree, and joins the lab as a Research Scientist Assistant. Luke will work with us over the next year while he applies for and prepares to enter medical school next Fall. Luke, we are glad that you will continue your efforts here.

May 2016: Aida Llauró Portell has joined our group. Aida is a physicist who used atomic force microscopy to mechanically deform single viral capsids, to image them as they deformed and, in some cases, to watch them spontaneously self-heal back to their original structures. These fascinating experiments from her PhD work with Pedro de Pablo have prepared her well for studying the biophysics of mitosis. Welcome Aida!

March 2016: Luke Johnson has been awarded the Biology Department Scholarship. Congratulations Luke! He also presented his latest results in a poster at the 19th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium.

March 2016: Yi Deng accepts a new job as a Scientist, Imaging Genomic Systems, at Nanostring Technologies in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle. Good luck to Yi in his new career.

November 2015: Megan Bailey wins a two-year Interdisciplinary Training Fellowship to support her work studying how cortical dynein interacts with dynamic microtubule tips. Congratulations Megan!

October 2015: Megan Bailey has joined our team. Megan has considerable expertise in the study of microtubule-severing enzymes – the subject of her thesis work in Jenny Ross’ lab – and also in performing difficult protein purifications! Welcome Megan!

September 2015: Luke Johnson joins us as an undergraduate researcher. Luke is a Biology major, who plans one day to attend medical school. In our lab he will study chromosome movements in meiotic insect spermatocytes.

July 2015: Jonathan Driver has enrolled in the Petroleum Engineering program at the University of Texas, Austin, one of the top programs in the country. Good luck to Jonathan (and thanks for sharing your mojito recipe)!

May 2015: Aaron Kahn joins lab as an undergraduate researcher. Aaron is a Biochemistry major. In our lab he will use ultrasensitive fluorescence imaging to study the structure and stability of individual kinetochores isolated from yeast.

January 2015: Congratulations to Erik Yusko, who has just accepted a new job as a Scientist, Computational Biologist, at Adaptive Biotechnology in the Eastlake neighborhood of Seattle. We wish Erik all the best as he begins this new phase of his career.

September 2014: Congratulations to Erik Yusko. Erik won a travel award to attend the EMBO conference, Centrosomes and spindle pole bodies, held this month in Lisbon Portugal. At the conference, he won an award for the best poster presentation (1st out of 125 posters)!

September 2014: Farewell to Neil Umbreit, who successfully defended his PhD in May. Now he is off to a postdoc in Boston working with David Pellman. Good luck Neil!

July 2014: We were very fortunate to have our collaborator Adèle Marston visiting Seattle this summer. While here she learned first-hand how to use a laser trap to study kinetochore-microtubule coupling. It was also terrific to be able to discuss in person the recent results from our collaboration and from the literature. Thanks for visiting Adèle!

June 2014: Congratulations to Jerry Tien, who was invited to attend the 64th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting on Physiology or Medicine. 37 Nobel Laureates joined for the week-long gathering, which included numerous scientific and social events. Young scientists from almost 80 different countries were chosen through a multi-stage competitive selection process.

June 2014: Kwaku Opoku has won a competitive predoctoral Cell and Molecular Biology training fellowship. This award will support his work studying the checkpoint system that delays mitosis until proper kinetochore-microtubule attachments are formed. Great work Kwaku!

March 2014: Congratulations to Jerry Tien, who successfully defended his PhD thesis! Jerry is planning to begin a new postdoc position later this summer at the Genome Sciences Centre of the BC Cancer Agency.

January 2014: Erik Yusko has been awarded an NRSA postdoctoral fellowship from the NIH. This award will fund his work studying how the attachments between centrosomes and microtubules transmit, respond to, and generate forces. Congratulations Erik!

December 2013: Congratulations to Kwaku Opoku, who has passed his general exam. Kwaku proposed his thesis project to study the spindle assembly checkpoint at the level of single kinetochore particles.

February 2013: Congratulations to Jonathan Driver, who has won a Fellow Award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society . This award provides three years of financial support for Jonathan's studies of kinetochore phosphorylation, which he is carrying out in the Asbury and Biggins labs.

January 2013: Erik Yusko has joined our lab as a postdoc. Erik is an expert in the development of new methods for analyzing individual proteins using nanopores coated with fluid lipid bilayers. Here he will apply his skills to study how the attachments between centrosomes and microtubules transmit, respond to, and generate forces.

November 2012: Yi Deng has joined our group as a postdoc. Yi is an expert in the development of advanced biophysical instruments, including laser traps, atomic force microscopes, and super-resolution fluorescence microscopes. Here Yi will apply his skills to study kinetochore dynamics.

May 2012: We are delighted that Kwaku Opoku, a graduate student in the Molecular and Cellular Biology program, has decided to join our group. Kwaku will apply his considerable skills in quantitative and image analysis to study the checkpoint system that delays mitosis until proper kinetochore-microtubule attachments are formed.

January 2012: Jonathan Driver has been awarded a fellowship from the Sackler Scholars Program in Integrative Biophysics. The award provides up to two years of salary support for his studies of kinetochore phosphorylation, which he will carry out in the Asbury and Biggins labs.

December 2011: Congratulations to Andy Powers, who has successfully defended his thesis! Andy also recently accepted a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research, which he will start in 2012.

November 2011: Jonathan Driver has joined our group as a postdoc. Jonathan is an expert in the study of cooperation among teams of molecular motors using a combinatino of synthetic molecular techniques, laser trapping, and computational methods. Here he will study how phosphorylation of isolated kinetochores in vitro affects their interactions with dynamic microtubule tips.

August 2011: Jason Stumpff is off to Burlington Vermont, where he will start his own laboratory in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, at the University of Vermont. Farewell, Jason! (Click here to visit Jason's lab website.)

April 2011: Hugo Arellano-Santoyo has been awarded an International Student Research Fellowship from HHMI. The award provides salary support for his work toward uncovering how kinetochores generate ‘wait’ signals to control the timing of anaphase. Hugo is performing this research in both the Asbury and Biggins labs.

April 2011: Congratulations to Dan Gestaut, who has successfully defended his thesis! Dan has also accepted a postdoctoral position at Stanford, in the laboratory of Judith Frydman.

February 2011: Congratulations to Anne Knowlton! Anne just accepted a position at Cell Press, in Boston MA, where she will serve as a Scientific Editor for the journal, Current Biology.

December 2010: Andy Powers received the Norton B. Gilula Award at the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology. Only one student receives the Gilula award each year, based on their research accomplishments. The award covered Andy's travel and per diem expenses, and he gave a talk in the Mitosis & Meiosis minisymposium.

June 2010: Jason Stumpff has accepted a faculty position at the University of Vermont. He will join the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics in the UVM Medical School as an Assistant Professor, beginning in 2011. Congratulations Jason!

April 2010: Jason Stumpff has won a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Special Fellow Award. This is a career development grant that will provide salary support for one year here, and up to two years in an independent position. The award will support Jason's studies of how chromosome movements are controlled during mitosis.

November 2009: A vital new piece of lab equipment has been installed....a superautomatic espresso machine! The "oracle" is actually a referbished Jura Capresso Impressa S7 Coffee Center, purchased from Seattle Coffee Gear. Needless to say, lab productivity has skyrocketed.

October 2009: Chip was one of two researchers selected to give a New Investigator lecture in the annual Science in Medicine lecture series at UW. The seminar was video-televised across several hospitals in the Seattle and Spokane areas.

August 2009: Krishna Sarangapani has been awarded a fellowship through the UW Cardiovascular Pathology training program. This prestigious award will help fund his research over the next two years, and it will provide opportunities for him to interact with scientists doing basic and clinical research in a very wide variety of areas.

June 2009: Congratulations to Jeremy Cooper! He just accepted his dream job at Applied Precision (Issaquah WA), working in the instrument development division. Jeremy will be sorely missed around here; but we're glad he will continue to put his talents for instrument building to good use.

May 2009: Krishna Sarangapani has joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Krishna brings considerable expertise in the study of individual cell adhesion molecules using AFM. Here he will apply his skill in single molecule mechanics to study kinetochore microtubule interactions.

May 2009: Andy Powers has been awarded an IGERT fellowship, through the UW Center for Nanotechnology. This award will support his development of new in vitro assays to investigate how the strength of kinetochore-microtubule attachments are modulated by phosphoregulation and tensile force.

January 2008: Ryan Lemke has been awarded a Mary Gates Undergraduate Research Scholarship, to support the work he is carrying out with Jason Stumpff. Ryan and Jason are investigating how Kinesin-8 motor proteins help to guide chromosomes to the equator of the cell during mitosis.

May 2007: Both Andrew Franck and Andy Powers have won competitive predoctoral fellowships. Andrew's is through the UW Center for Nanotechnology. Andy's is through the UW Cell and Molecular Training Grant. These two-year awards will support their investigations of the roles of Dam1 and Ndc80 in chromosome-microtubule coupling.

February 2007: Andrew Franck has been selected to participate in the prestigious Woods Hole Summer Physiology Course. This will be a great opportunity to meet other bright young scientists working at the cutting edge of biology. Nice work Andrew!

September 2006: Jason Stumpff has won an NRSA postdoctoral fellowship to study how kinesin-family proteins regulate microtubule dynamics to promote accurate chromosome segregation during cell division.

September 2006: Chip has been awarded a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering. Funds from this award will be used to develop new optical trapping-based assays for studying the mitotic spindle, using purified proteins and isolated organelles.

June 2006: The Asbury lab publishes its first paper, in the June 27 issue of PNAS. The work demonstrates that pure recombinant Dam1 complex can harness microtubule growth and shortening to generate movement and force.

May 2006: Chip has been selected as one of fifteen recipients of the Searle Scholar Award. Funds from this award will be used to develop fluorescence-based tools for studying interactions between spindle components and microtubules at the level of single molecules.

July 2005: Chip has been selected as this year's recipient of the Marian E. Smith Junior Faculty Research Award. Funds from the award will support optical trapping-based studies of the yeast Dam1 complex, a key element that links chromosomes to dynamic microtubule tips in the yeast mitotic spindle.

May 2005: Andy Powers and Andrew Franck (Physiology and Biophysics program) have joined the lab. Both bring expertise from previous lab work, Andy in cardiovascular biology and Andrew in particle physics. They will use optical trapping to study how tensile force modulates microtubule growth and shortening.