Headshot portrait of Jiarui Wang - Mona M. Burgess Fellow
Bio-X SIGF Graduate Student Fellow

Awarded in 2018
Home Department: Chemistry
Faculty Advisors: Lucy Shapiro (Developmental Biology) and W.E. Moerner (Chemistry)

Research Title: Molecular Cinematography: Single-Molecule Imaging of Heterogeneous Protein Behaviors for Understanding Asymmetric Cell Division in Caulobacter crescentus

Research Description: Asymmetric cell division leads to cellular diversity in eukaryotic Photo of graduate student Jiarui Wang in the lab, leaning in towards a large silver laser setup.developmental programs, which is especially critical for stem cells. The process of generating different progeny requires dynamic positioning of certain proteins at opposite ends of a cell, but a particular subset of these proteins perform asymmetric functions despite being symmetrically organized in a cell. Jiarui will be combining molecular genetics, physical chemistry, and novel single-molecule imaging to quantify a particular protein, PopA, in the bacteria Caulobacter crescentus, to provide clarity and insight into the fundamental mechanisms that drive asymmetric cell division.

WHERE IS SHE NOW?

Jiarui is currently a clinical applications manager at Miltenyi Biotec.