Achievement

A paper co-authored by Janel Titus (ICE IGERT associate, MCB) and published in the Journal of Cell Biology was selected as a Research Highlight. In this paper, entitled “TPX2 regulates the localization and activity of Eg5 in the mammalian mitotic spindle,” Janel measured the behavior of a mitotic motor protein to understand how the mitotic spindle works. After securing seed funds to initiate a new interdisciplinary research project through the ICE IGERT Student Training Grant competition, Janel sought insect cell culture expertise from the Garman lab (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology) and biophysical characterization expertise from the Ross lab (Physics) to purify the mitotic motor protein, microtubules and a putative regulator to directly demonstrate how this motor contributes to mitosis.