Welch Lab
Principal Investigator: Matthew D Welch
Institution: University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, CA)
Primary Subfield: Molecular & Cell Bio
Recruitment Status: ✅ Accepting PhD Students ✅ Hiring Postdocs
Research Focus
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The actin cytoskeleton is crucial for cellular properties and behaviors including shape, migration, and division. It is also critical for cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix connections as well as cell-cell fusion. Because of these numerous essential functions in cell physiology, actin dysfunction is also a common contributor to pathogenesis, for example, in inflammation, cardiovascular disease, cancer metastasis, and microbial infection. Despite many years of study, however, understanding how actin assembly is regulated and harnessed in the cytoplasm and nucleus for intracellular events, cellular behaviors, and cell-cell interactions remains a key outstanding problem in cell biology. In our NIGMS-funded research, my lab has taken a distinctive approach to address this important gap in knowledge, which is to examine the interactions between microbes that do not cause serious human illness and the host cell actin cytoskeleton as a window into actin regulation and function. Our approach leverages the fact that microbes colonize host cells through their ability to target actin, often eliciting amplified cellular responses by mimicking or manipulating host…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R35GM127108-09: Microbial mobilization of the actin cytoskeleton (2026)
- 4R01AI109044-12: Mechanisms of Rickettsia invasion, intracellular survival, and actin-based motility (2025)
- 5R35GM127108-08: Microbial mobilization of the actin cytoskeleton (2025)
- 5R35GM127108-07: Microbial mobilization of the actin cytoskeleton (2024)
- 3R35GM127108-07S1: Microbial mobilization of the actin cytoskeleton (2024)
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