the merz lab

welcome

Our lab, in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Washington School of Medicine, is working to answer fundamental questions about how cells are organized, with an emphasis on the membrane dynamics of organelles such as endosomes and lysosomes. For more information, check out the People, Research and Papers pages.

Cortney Angers has successfully defended her dissertation on traffic through the yeast AP-3 pathway.

Congratulations to postdoc Chris Brett! Chris has accepted a tenure-track position at Concordia University in Montreal, where he will be starting his own research group this fall.
Grad student Cortney Angers and the boss wrote a comprehensive review article on interactions between vesicle coats and tethering factors. It’s in press at Seminars in Cell and Devleopmental Biology [download PDF]. Cortney’s thesis defense is scheduled for early August, and then she’s off to a life in the private sector.

Grad student Cortney Angers publishes her new paper on the dynamics and interactions of the AP-3 coat complex and the HOPS vesicle tethering complex.

Postdoc Dan Nickerson is awarded an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship. Congratulations, Dan!
The boss (Alex) is awarded an American Cancer Society Research Scholar Grant, which will help to fund our work on endocytic traffic control by Vps-C protein complexes.

Grad student Margaret Lo wins a second year of NSF-IGERT funding for her work on vesicle tethering mechanisms.