In 2002, Sally Zigmond and other UPenn/PMI scientists made the seminal discovery of formin’s ability to nucleate and elongate actin filaments (Science; DOI: 10.1126/science.1072309). Utilizing UPenn’s cryo-EM facility, Nick Palmer and Kyle Barrie, students in the Dominguez Lab, have just published in Nature (https://rdcu.be/dJ8mW) the cryo-EM structures of INF2 and Dia1 that now provide a step-by-step visualization of the mechanisms of actin filament severing and elongation, bringing this story full-circle here at Penn! The implications of this study are profound since formin dysfunction is linked to pathologies, including cardiomyopathies, cancers, and neurological disorders. Mutations in the two formins studied in their paper, INF2 and Dia1, produce focal segmental glomerulosclerosis and Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathy (INF2), and deafness (Dia1). Please join us in congratulating the Dominguez Lab on this accomplishment!! | Palmer, N.J., Barrie, K.R. & Dominguez, R. Mechanisms of actin filament severing and elongation by formins. Nature (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07637-0

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Michael Ostap as interim Senior Vice Dean and Chief Scientific Officer for the Perelman School of Medicine!

Congratulations to Adam Fenton (Holzbaur and Jongens Labs) for receiving the 2024 Saul Winegrad Award for Outstanding Dissertation. The Saul Winegrad Award for Outstanding Dissertation was established in 1995 in honor of the founding Director of BGS, Saul Winegrad, MD, Emeritus Professor of Physiology. The award was created to recognize a dissertation of outstanding quality which makes a significant contribution to biomedical science.

Spring 2024 Physiology/PMI Seminar Series Dates

Save the date for our annual PMI Holiday Social!

Please see our list of speakers for our Fall 2023 dates.

Register by 10/9! Speakers and talk titles announced - PMI Annual Retreat and Symposium.

"Celebrating 50 Years of Muscle, Motors, and the Cytoskeleton" - register now for the PMI Annual Symposium on 10/16/2023. (Deadline: Oct. 9, 2023)

Penn Medicine News: Study Unravels the Mysteries of Actin Filament Polarity. An electron microscopy study revealed key details of actin filaments, which are essential structural elements of cells and muscles.

The Dominguez Lab solves the mystery of polarity at actin filament ends! See Science article here: Carman PJ, Barrie KR, Rebowski G, Dominguez R. Science. 2023 May 25:eadg6812. doi: 10.1126/science.adg6812. Online ahead of print. PMID: 37228182