Biography:Nancy Kedersha

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Short description: American cell biologist and micrographer
Nancy Kedersha
Born1951 (age 72–73)
Hackensack, New Jersey, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Alma materBucknell University (Bachelors) Rutgers University (PhD)
AwardsLennart Nilsson Award Nikon Small World finalist
Scientific career
FieldsMicroscopy
InstitutionsUCLA ImmunoGen Inc.
Thesis (1983)
Doctoral advisorRichard A Berg
Other academic advisorsLeonard Rome

Nancy Kedersha (born 1951) is an American cell biologist and micrographer. She got her Ph.D. from Rutgers University where she worked in Richard Berg's lab studying the characteristics and assembly of prolyl hydroxylases. Afterwards she joined Leonard Rome's lab at UCLA as a post-doctoral fellow where she co-discovered the vault (organelle). Subsequently, she worked at ImmunoGen Inc. where she worked on staining and photographing different cancer cells. She then worked as an instructor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Paul Anderson's lab, where her work focused on studying stress granule formation. In late-2020, she retired. In addition to her contributions as a scientist, Kedersha has been quite successful in different microscopy competitions. She is a four-time Nikon Small World finalist and in 2011 she won the Lennart Nilsson Award.

Education and early life

Kedersha is the daughter of Richard Kedersha, a professor of business administration and basketball coach at Rutgers University.[1] She graduated high school from Rutherford High School in the class of 1969.[2][3] After completing her bachelor's in biology from Bucknell University in 1973, Kedersha pursued her graduate studies at Rutgers University in Richard Berg's lab where she characterized the purification, assembly, and biosynthesis of prolyl hydroxylase.[4][5][6] In 1983 she obtained her PhD in biochemistry.[7]

Career

From 1983 to 1988 Kedersha worked as a post doctoral fellow in Leonard Rome's lab at UCLA.[3] In collaboration with Rome, she co-discovered the vault (organelle).[8] The vault is this large cytoplasmic organelle found in eukaryotes, but whose function has not fully been elucidated.[9] Recent studies done in trypanosome suggest it plays a role in trans-spliced mRNA.[10]

After her post-doctoral fellowship, Kedersha worked briefly in industry for ImmunoGen Inc. using microscopy to study cancer cells. She returned to academia where she became an instructor of medicine within Paul Anderson's lab at Brigham and Women's Hospital and studied stress granules.[11][12][13] While there, she became the director of the confocal microscopy core.[7] She also co-wrote a chapter in Translation Mechanisms and Control.[14]

Awards and honors

Kedersha has placed ten times in the Nikon Small World competition in which four of those times she was a finalist.[15] She has also won the prestigious Lennart Nilsson Award in 2011 for her work in fluorescence microscopy.[7][16][17]

Nancy Kedersha's colour images open our eyes to the smallest components of life. Through her work she has pushed cell biology into new scientific, pedagogical and aesthetic realms. With the aid of a confocal microscope, she has turned biological data into an artistic experience.

References

  1. "Richard Kedersha Obituary (2008) FloridaToday". https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/floridatoday/name/richard-kedersha-obituary?pid=119759724. 
  2. "Rutherford is looking for distinguished graduates to add to list", South Bergenite, January 29, 2003. Accessed September 29, 2021, via Newspapers.com. "cell biologist Nancy Kedersha, '69, whose examination of the components of a cell led to the identification of a new organelle named 'vault,' 1997."
  3. 3.0 3.1 "Welcome to the Vault Website: Maintained by the Rome Laboratory at UCLA: OPEN_CMS". https://vaults.arc.ucla.edu/pages/nancykedersha. 
  4. Berg, R. A.; Kedersha, N. L.; Guzman, N. A. (1979-04-25). "Purification and partial characterization of the two nonidentical subunits of prolyl hydroxylase". The Journal of Biological Chemistry 254 (8): 3111–3118. doi:10.1016/S0021-9258(17)30189-8. ISSN 0021-9258. PMID 218963. 
  5. Kedersha, N. L.; Berg, R. A. (July 1981). "An improved method for the purification of vertebrate prolyl hydroxylase by affinity chromatography". Collagen and Related Research 1 (4): 345–353. doi:10.1016/s0174-173x(81)80011-8. ISSN 0174-173X. PMID 6286234. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6286234. 
  6. Kedersha, N. L.; Tkacz, J. S.; Berg, R. A. (1985-10-08). "Biosynthesis of prolyl hydroxylase: evidence for two separate dolichol-media pathways of glycosylation". Biochemistry 24 (21): 5960–5967. doi:10.1021/bi00342a041. ISSN 0006-2960. PMID 3002430. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3002430. 
  7. 7.0 7.1 7.2 "Lennart Nilsson Award 2011: The Secret Life of Cells – in Colour" (in en). doi:10.1002/imaging.2768. https://analyticalscience.wiley.com/do/10.1002/imaging.2768. 
  8. Kedersha, N. L.; Rome, L. H. (1986-09-01). "Isolation and characterization of a novel ribonucleoprotein particle: large structures contain a single species of small RNA". The Journal of Cell Biology 103 (3): 699–709. doi:10.1083/jcb.103.3.699. ISSN 0021-9525. PMID 2943744. 
  9. Kedersha, N. L.; Miquel, M. C.; Bittner, D.; Rome, L. H. (1990-04-01). "Vaults. II. Ribonucleoprotein structures are highly conserved among higher and lower eukaryotes". The Journal of Cell Biology 110 (4): 895–901. doi:10.1083/jcb.110.4.895. ISSN 0021-9525. PMID 1691193. 
  10. Kolev, Nikolay G.; Rajan, K. Shanmugha; Tycowski, Kazimierz T.; Toh, Justin Y.; Shi, Huafang; Lei, Yuling; Michaeli, Shulamit; Tschudi, Christian (2019-10-25). "The vault RNA of Trypanosoma brucei plays a role in the production of trans-spliced mRNA". The Journal of Biological Chemistry 294 (43): 15559–15574. doi:10.1074/jbc.RA119.008580. ISSN 0021-9258. PMID 31439669. 
  11. Kedersha, N. L.; Gupta, M.; Li, W.; Miller, I.; Anderson, P. (1999-12-27). "RNA-binding proteins TIA-1 and TIAR link the phosphorylation of eIF-2 alpha to the assembly of mammalian stress granules". The Journal of Cell Biology 147 (7): 1431–1442. doi:10.1083/jcb.147.7.1431. ISSN 0021-9525. PMID 10613902. 
  12. Kedersha, Nancy; Stoecklin, Georg; Ayodele, Maranatha; Yacono, Patrick; Lykke-Andersen, Jens; Fritzler, Marvin J.; Scheuner, Donalyn; Kaufman, Randal J. et al. (2005-06-20). "Stress granules and processing bodies are dynamically linked sites of mRNP remodeling". The Journal of Cell Biology 169 (6): 871–884. doi:10.1083/jcb.200502088. ISSN 0021-9525. PMID 15967811. 
  13. Kedersha, Nancy; Panas, Marc D.; Achorn, Christopher A.; Lyons, Shawn; Tisdale, Sarah; Hickman, Tyler; Thomas, Marshall; Lieberman, Judy et al. (2016-03-28). "G3BP-Caprin1-USP10 complexes mediate stress granule condensation and associate with 40S subunits". The Journal of Cell Biology 212 (7): 845–860. doi:10.1083/jcb.201508028. ISSN 1540-8140. PMID 27022092. 
  14. "Translation Mechanisms and Control". https://cshperspectives.cshlp.org/site/misc/translation_mechanisms_and_control.xhtml. 
  15. "Nancy Kedersha" (in en-US). https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/people/nancy-kedersha. 
  16. "The secret life of cells – in colour" (in en). https://www.bionity.com/en/news/134870/the-secret-life-of-cells-in-colour.html. 
  17. "Fotografen Lennart Nilsson och Lennart Nilsson Award" (in sv-SE). https://www.lennartnilssonaward.se/.