Emeryville, California
Cell biologist at Arcadia Science. I test whether unusual organisms can model human disease, and build the imaging it takes to find out.
01 — Work
Most human disease work happens in a handful of species. Computational biologists at Arcadia score how closely each organism's predicted protein structures match the human versions, and surface the ones that come out closer than their evolutionary distance would suggest — that analysis is searchable in Zoogle. My part is downstream of it: taking those candidates to the bench and working out whether they behave like usable models.
Unusual organisms rarely come with established assays, so much of the work is building them: quantitative live-cell imaging, high-content and 3D phenotyping, and working out how to measure a phenotype in a species nobody has measured before.
My PhD was on branched actin in fission yeast — how a cell positions the machinery that builds it. The adaptor Bbc1 controls where the WASP protein Wsp1 sits within an endocytic patch, which changes how far the patch internalises. My postdoc moved to Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, asking how the Arp2/3 complex is regulated in an organism with no conventional nucleation-promoting factors. The endocytosis sandbox below is built from the thesis.
Chlamydomonas
Volvox
Chlorella
Tetraselmis
Micromonas
Isochrysis
Phaeodactylum
Nannochloropsis
Paramecium
Tetrahymena
Euglena
Dictyostelium
CandidaChlamydomonas
S. pombe
H. sapiens cell lines
M. musculus
C. elegansH. sapiens cell lines02 — Playground
Four models from the work below, written in Python and run in your browser via Pyodide — no server, no install. The first is a sandbox built from my thesis: pick a genotype and watch a fission yeast endocytic patch succeed or fail the way the mutants actually do.
03 — Publications
Complete list, newest first. Everything from Arcadia is open access on The Stacks, published as the work happens — including observations and dead ends that wouldn’t clear the bar for a conventional paper. Live indexes: Google Scholar · ORCID.
An automated workflow for kit-based ELISAs
Marine Broth induces extreme morphological transformations in Chlamydomonas smithii
Modular CRISPR landing pads for Chlamydomonas reinhardtii
Morphological transformation of Chlamydomonas smithii grown in Marine Broth medium
Chlamydomonas cpc1-1 mutant exhibits unexpected growth phenotypes
Enabling integrative cell biology with the Arcadia Chlamydomonas Diversity Collection
High-throughput analysis of phenotypic variation between interfertile Chlamydomonas species
Live 3D-imaging of unicellular algae for high-content phenotyping
Morphological and motility differences in interfertile Chlamydomonas algal species: technological advancements in quantitative analysis
Raman spectroscopy enables rapid and inexpensive exploration of biology
Rescuing Chlamydomonas motility in mutants modeling spermatogenic failure
The phenotype-o-mat: a flexible tool for collecting visual phenotypes
Inducing protoplast formation in Phaeodactylum tricornutum by silica deprivation, enzymatic treatment, or cytoskeletal inhibition
Phenotypic differences between interfertile Chlamydomonas species
ProteinCartography: comparing proteins with structure-based maps for interactive exploration
Chlorarachniophytes form light- and Arp2/3 complex-dependent extensions that are involved in motility and predation
Mechanisms of Wiskott–Aldrich syndrome protein Wsp1 positioning and regulation at sites of endocytosis in S. pombe
First person – Cameron MacQuarrie
The S. pombe adaptor protein Bbc1 regulates localization of Wsp1 and Vrp1 during endocytic actin patch assembly
Adaptor protein Bbc1 regulates localization of Wsp1 and Vrp1 during endocytic actin patch assembly
No publications in that category.
04 — Images
Bigelowiella longifila catching prey with one of its extensions — the behaviour behind the chlorarachniophyte paper below, and behind the “Hunting cell” simulation in the playground.
05 — Contact
Happy to talk about organisms, microscopy, and phenotyping.