Reconstituting the Cytoskeleton

Ronald D. Vale is Professor of the Dept. of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco and is an Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Vale received B.A. degrees in Biology and Chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1980. Dr. Vale received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Stanford University in 1985 where he trained with Dr. Eric Shooter. He was a Staff Fellow with the N.I.H. stationed at the Marine Biological Laboratory in 1985-6 (with Tom Reese) and began his faculty appointment at UCSF in 1987. During his time at UCSF, he has served as the Director of the Cell Biology Program (4 years) and Vice-Chair (10 years) and Chair of the Dept. of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology (5 years). He also holds an Adjunct Senior Scientist appointment with the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole. Vale has served the scientific community by his participation on an NIH study section (1996-2002; chairing from 2000-2002). He served as President of the American Society of Cell Biology and on their International Affairs Committee. Vale is active in many educational activities. He founded and produces iBioSeminars, lectures by leading biologists which are made freely available on the web. Vale co-directed the 7 week Physiology Course at the Marine Biological Laboratory, transforming it to a venue of interdisciplinary research in physics and biology (2004-2008). His laboratory developed MicroManager, a widely used open source and freely available software package for microscopy. He also developed an educational web site on microscopy for elementary school children. Vale is active in helping young scientists in India by starting the very popular Young Investigator Meetings as well as an interactive web site (IndiaBioscience.org) for India biologists to obtain information on jobs/grants/collaborations. Dr. Vale’s awards include the Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry (1991), the Young Investigator Award from the Biophysical Society (1993), the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences (2012), and the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (2012). He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2001 and to the American Academy of Sciences in 2002.

Polymer dynamics 1.  Actin filament dynamics using microfluidics 2.  Bacterial actin-like proteins: purification and characterization of self-assembly properties 3.  Quantitative analysis of microtubule self-assembly kinetics and tip structure

Polymer nucleation and regulation 4.  Biochemical reconstitution of the WAVE regulatory complex 5.  Rotational movement of formins evaluated by using single-molecule fluorescence polarization 6.  Single molecule studies of actin assembly and disassembly factors 7.  Assaying microtubule nucleation by the ?-tubulin ring complex 8.  Reconstituting dynamic microtubule polymerization regulation by TOG domain proteins. 9.  Generation of differentially modified microtubules using in vitro enzymatic approaches

Molecular motor ensembles on natural and engineered cargoes 10.  Engineering defined motor ensembles with DNA origami 11.  Construction and analyses of elastically-coupled multiple motor systems 12.  Reconstitution of cortical dynein function             13.  Reconstitution of microtubule-dependent organelle transport 14.  Reconstituting the motility of isolated intracellular cargoes

Building higher order networks and interactions 15.  Reconstitution of contractile actomyosin arrays 16.  Directed actin assembly and motility 17.  In vitro reconstitution of dynamic microtubules interacting with actin filament networks 18.  Measuring kinetochore-microtubule interaction in vitro 19. Micropattern-guided assembly of overlapping pairs of dynamic microtubules 

Cell extract systems 20.  WAVE regulatory complex activation 21.  Dissecting principles governing actin assembly using yeast extracts 23.  Glycogen-supplemented mitotic cytosol for analyzing Xenopus egg microtubule organization 24.  Spindle movements on immobilized chromatin micropatterns