Dumont Lab
Principal Investigator: Sophie Dumont
Institution: University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco, CA)
Primary Subfield: Molecular & Cell Bio
Recruitment Status: ✅ Accepting PhD Students ✅ Hiring Postdocs
Research Focus
Project Summary/Abstract Every time a cell divides, it must accurately segregate its chromosomes for daughter cells to inherit an intact genome. The spindle and kinetochore are the large cellular machines that drive this segregation, and their failures can give rise to birth defects and cancer. In mammals, we now have a near complete list of these machines’ molecules, and know much about their biochemistry and structure. Yet, despite the spindle and kinetochore playing an essential physical role – moving chromosomes – how their molecules give rise to their emergent physical properties and function remains poorly understood. In large part, this is because of the challenges of working with large cellular machines vitro, and of probing mechanics in vivo. To meet this challenge, our lab set out to bring controlled mechanical perturbations inside dividing mammalian cells, and to combine them with precise molecular ones. Key to our efforts, we can now use microneedle manipulation to exert local, controlled forces in dividing mammalian cells. We combine physical and molecular perturbations of live cells with imaging, modeling and in vitro work to ask: How do many thousands of nm-scale mol…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R35GM136420-07: Emergent mechanics of mammalian chromosome segregation (2026)
- 2R35GM136420-06: Emergent mechanics of mammalian chromosome segregation (2025)
- 5R35GM136420-05: Emergent mechanics of mammalian chromosome segregation (2024)
- 3R35GM136420-04S1: Defining the physical and molecular basis of kinetochore structural maintenance under force (2024)
- 3R35GM136420-05S2: Microscopy system upgrade (2024)
Explore 700+ US Biology Labs on FindBioLabs.com