I received my undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College in 1974 and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Duke University in 1980. As a result of my post-doctoral research at the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD), I became interested in the mechanism of secretory vesicle biogenesis and trafficking. Since joining the UT Southwestern faculty in 1987, I have pursued several topics related to membrane vesiculation. At present, we are examining the functions and regulations of dynamin, a large (100kDa) GTPase that severs the necks of nascent vesicles, thereby releasing them from their parent membranes. Dynamin activity is required for receptor-mediated endocytosis and synaptic vesicle recycling, and may also be essential for Golgi budding. In previous studies we determined the physical and kinetic properties of dynamin, and established that its function is regulated in cells by binding to specific phosphoinositide lipids. As part of this work, we cloned and characterized a novel family of phosphoinositide kinases that may have key roles in vesicle biogenesis from the Golgi apparatus. We are continuing our efforts to understand how proteins and lipids cooperate to overcome energetic barriers against membrane fusion and fission.
