Life Sciences Institute Announces Five New Faculty
September 25, 2006, ANN ARBOR, Mich.---The Life Sciences Institute (LSI) at the University of Michigan has hired five new faculty members, bringing the total faculty in the multidisciplinary research institute to 25.
The latest LSI recruits include two new researchers for the U-M Center for Stem Cell Biology, two chemists and a geneticist. Three of the five are women. Each scientist was jointly recruited in collaboration with other U-M departments, including the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, the College of Pharmacy, and the department of human genetics in the U-M Medical School.
“These stellar recruits bring a breadth and depth to our life sciences research and firmly establish the LSI as a significant presence in scientific discovery,” said U-M President Mary Sue Coleman. “LSI has succeeded in its mission to bring scientists from different disciplines together to encourage them to look for important problems that can be addressed from the many perspectives where their expertise lies.”
The new LSI faculty:
Kate S. Carroll, PhD, studies the biology of sulfur-containing compounds that play an important role in immune diseases and antibiotic resistance. Carroll joined the LSI in summer 2006 as an assistant research professor, and will also be an assistant professor of Chemistry in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. She recently received a Special Fellow Award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Association. She completed her Damon Runyon postdoctoral fellowship in Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley in Carolyn Bertozzi’s lab. A California native, she received her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Mills College and her PhD in Biochemistry from Stanford University.
Sylvie Garneau-Tsodikova, PhD, studies organic compounds that may help inhibit microbial agents and cancer cells. Garneau-Tsodikova joined the LSI as an assistant research professor in August 2006. She is also the John G. Searle assistant professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the College of Pharmacy. A French Canadian, Garneau received her undergraduate and master’s degrees in Organic Chemistry from Université Laval in Québec, and her PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Alberta. Before joining the LSI she completed her postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School with LSI Advisory board member Christopher T. Walsh.
John K. Kim, PhD, uses the roundworm C. elegans to study the functions of small RNA molecules in animal development and disease. Kim joined the LSI in fall 2006 as an assistant research professor and assistant professor in the department of human genetics at the Medical School. He completed a Helen Hay Whitney postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Molecular Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School with Gary Ruvkun. He received his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of California, Davis, and his BS in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University.
Cheng-Yu Lee, PhD, who joins the Center for Stem Cell Biology, investigates the biology of neural stem cells in the fruit fly Drosophila, with implications for human neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s. Lee joined the LSI in summer 2006 as an assistant research professor, as well as assistant professor within the Division of Molecular Medicine and Genetics in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Medical School. He received the prestigious 2006 Burroughs Welcome Fund Career Award in Biomedical Science. He completed a Damon Runyon postdoctoral fellowship in the Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Oregon, received his undergraduate degree in Zoology and his PhD in Biology from the University of Maryland – College Park.
Yukiko Yamashita, Ph D, investigates how adult stem cells decide upon their fate to maintain tissue stability. She will join the Center for Stem Cell Biology and LSI in January 2007 as an assistant research professor and assistant professor in the Department of cell & developmental biology at the Medical School. She is currently completing her postdoctoral fellowship in Margaret Fuller's laboratory in Developmental Biology at Stanford. She received both her BS and PhD in Biophysics from Kyoto University in Japan. She held the JSPS fellowship and the Jose Carreras International Leukemia Foundation fellowship.
“We reached for some real scientific stars this year,” said LSI director Alan Saltiel. “We competed with the best institutions and landed a group of faculty who represent a wide range of disciplines and approaches to research. With the possibilities created through collaborations among our multidisciplinary faculty, we envision major strides forward, building knowledge that we hope will improve the human condition.”
The two recruits in the Center for Stem Cell Biology mark an important milestone in U-M’s increased effort in this key area. The Center, opened in September 2005, is located in the LSI and is headed by noted researcher Sean Morrison, who has made several important discoveries in stem cell science this year.
“With these talented new faculty, the U-M Center for Stem Cell Biology will conduct basic science research that has the potential to change the way people think about important questions in biomedical research” Morrison said.
In the Institute’s first three years of operation, the interdisciplinary LSI faculty have won more than $20 million in research funding and published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles appearing in top journals including Nature, Science, and Cell. There are now more than 500 researchers working in the LSI on faculty-led teams, including more than 100 students. The LSI has joint appointments with three schools and colleges and 13 departments.
Contact: Robin Stephenson, (734) 615-9390, rbs@umich.edu
