Biochemical Journal Young Investigator Award winner

Dr Sarah Woolner

At the Actin 2008 meeting Sarah Woolner presented her recent findings showing a key requirement for myosin-10 (Myo10) and actin filaments in the mitotic spindle. These results are especially surprising, considering that the role of actin in the mitotic spindle has been widely debated, and largely discounted, for the last 30 years. For this work she used Xenopus laevis embryos as an in vivo model to analyse mitosis - a novel and yet powerful system for these studies since it allows mitotic spindles to be followed live in the context of a whole vertebrate embryo. Sarah carried out this work as a postdoc in the laboratory of Professor Bill Bement at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She recently moved back to the UK to take up a Beit Memorial Fellowship at the University of Manchester in the laboratory of Professor Nancy Papalopulu, where she is continuing to look at the role of Myo10 in the mitotic spindle during embryonic development. She previously obtained my PhD from the University of London, where she worked in the laboratory of Professor Paul Martin, studying the role of actin protrusions and unconventional myosins during morphogenesis in Drosophila embryos.