RONG LI LABORATORY

biosketch

I earned my Bachelors of Science in Physics from Truman State University in Kirksville, MO in 2005. As an undergraduate, I worked to build a scanning tunneling microscope with Dr. Mohammed Samiullah, for which I earned an Undergraduate Research Award from the national Society of Physics Students. I also did summer research dealing with optical microfluidics at SRI International in Stanford, CA; with superconductors at Argonne National Lab in Argonne, IL; and with early embryo development in sea urchin with Dr. James Coffman here at the Stowers Institute.

In August 2005 I joined the Imaging Center of the Stowers Institute, led by Dr. Paul Kulesa, where I worked on several projects, including collaboration with Dr. Ting Xie on competition among stem cells for niche occupancy in the fruit fly ovary. I became a graduate student at the University of Kansas Medical Center in August 2007, and officially joined Rong Li’s group as a graduate student in June 2008.

current projects

I am interested in how cells work in accordance with the laws of physics, and especially thermodynamics, to control their inner environment so that all the important events necessary to life happen at the right time and place. To this end, I study how a very simple system, the budding yeast, controls a very simple transition, symmetry breaking. Budding yeast are round, symmetric cells during much of their life cycle, but during reproduction the daughter cell grows as a bud out of one side of the mother cell. This transition from symmetric to directed growth requires a massive reorganization of signaling molecules and the actin cytoskeleton. In my work, I study the molecules important in symmetry breaking, and how their individual functions allow them to work together to move from a uniform distribution in the round cell to a concentrated cap at the nascent bud site.

publications

Slaughter BD, Smith SE and Li R: Symmetry breaking in the life cycle of the budding yeast. Cold Spring Harbor Perspect Biol 2009, 1(3):a003384. [Abstract]

Jin Z, Kirilly D, Weng C, Kawase E, Song X, Smith S, Schwartz J, and Xie T: Differentiation-Defective Stem Cells Outcompete Normal Stem Cells for Niche Occupancy in the Drosophila Ovary. Cell Stem Cell 2008, 2:39-49. [Abstract]

Kulesa PM, Teddy JM, Stark DA, Smith SE, and McLennan R: Neural crest invasion is a spatially-ordered progression into the head with higher cell proliferation at the migratory front as revealed by the photoactivatable protein, KikGR. Dev Biol 2008, 316:275-287. [Abstract]

Byers MA, Calloway PA, Shannon L, Cunningham HD, Smith S, Li F, Fassold BC, and Vines CM: Arrestin 3 Mediates Endocytosis of CCR7 following Ligation of CCL19 but Not CCL21. J Immunol 2008, 181:4723-4732. [Abstract]