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Boerckel Laboratory

Erin Berlew

Research Associate
Hometown – Duryea, PA

Education:

B.S. in Chemistry, Haverford College, 2015
Ph.D. in Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, 2021

Areas of Interest:

Optogenetics, cell signaling, cytoskeletal biology, mechanotransduction, scientific computing

I’m interested in engineering new optogenetic tools to manipulate the cytoskeleton and perturb cell migration and mechanotransduction. I also work as a lecturer in Bioengineering and teach scientific computing and senior design.

Selected publications:

 (*) denotes equal contributions

  1. Berlew, E.E., Yamada, K., Rand, E.A., Kuznetsov, I.A., Ochs, C.C., Jaber, Z., Gardner, K.H., and Chow, B.Y. “Designing single-component optogenetic membrane recruitment systems: The Rho-family GTPase signaling toolbox.” ACS Syn. Bio. 2022. doi: 10.1021/acssynbio.1c00604.
  2. Benman, W., Berlew, E.E., Deng, H., Parker, C., Kuznetsov, I.A., Lim, B., Siekmann A.F., Chow, B.Y., and Bugaj, L.J. “Temperature sensing optogenetic probes of cell signaling.” Nature Chem. Biol. 2021. doi: 10.1038/s41589-021-00917-0.
  3. Berlew, E.E., Kuznetsov, I.A., Yamada K., Bugaj, L.J., Boerckel, J. D., and Chow, B.Y. “Single-component optogenetic tools for RhoA GTPase signaling.” Adv. Biol. 2021, e2100810.
  4. Kuznetsov, I.A., Berlew, E.E., Glantz, S.T., Hannanta-Anan, P., Chow, B.Y. “Single-cell spatiotemporal dynamics of optogenetic membrane recruitment by finite element modeling. In revision at Cell Systems. 2022.
  5. Berlew, E.E., Kuznetsov, I.A., Yamada K., Bugaj, L.J. and Chow, B.Y. “Optogenetic Rac1 engineered from membrane lipid-binding RGS-LOV for inducible. lamellipodia formation.” Photochem. Photobiol. Sci. 2020, 19, 353-361.
  6. Glantz, S.T.*, Berlew, E.E.*, and Chow, B.Y. “Synthetic cell-like membrane interfaces for probing dynamic protein-lipid interactions.” Method Enzymol. 2019, 622, 249-270.
  7. Glantz, S.T., Berlew, E.E., Jayber, Z., Schuster, B.S., Gardner K.H., and Chow, B.Y. “Directly light-regulated binding of RGS-LOV photoreceptors to anionic membrane phospholipids.” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 2018, 115, E7720-E7727.

Awards:

  • Solomon R. Pollack Award for Excellence in Graduate Bioengineering Research, 2022
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