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Rebecca Heald

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American cell and developmental biologist
ProfessorRebecca Heald
Dr. Rebecca Heald in 2015
NationalityAmerican
Alma materHamilton College
Scientific career
FieldsCell and developmental biology
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Berkeley
Doctoral advisorFrank McKeon
Other academic advisorsEric Karsenti
Websitehttp://mcb.berkeley.edu/labs/heald/

Rebecca W. Heald is an American professor of cell and developmental biology. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. In May 2019, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. She has published over 120 research articles in peer reviewed journals.

Education and academic appointments

Heald grew up in Greenville, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Hamilton College in upstate New York. She said she was inspired by "Biochemistry Professor, Donna Brown. I barely had a clue about what I was doing, but discovered the joy of pipeting colorless liquids from tube to tube." She received her Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School, where she worked in the laboratory of Frank McKeon. She was a postdoctoral researcher with Eric Karsenti at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. She joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley in 1997, and has held the Flora Lamson Hewlett Chair of Biochemistry since 2011. In addition to running her research group, from 2018-2021 she served as a regional associate dean for research administration and she is currently co-chair of the department of Molecular and Cell Biology.

Research

Heald studies topics in cell biology and developmental biology, including size control in animals, and the regulation of cell division. She uses egg cytoplasmic extracts from the frog Xenopus laevis and the related, smaller frog Xenopus tropicalis to study the behavior and size scaling of the mitotic spindle. She has shown that the volume of the cytoplasm in which a spindle forms is a key factor in regulating the size of the spindle, addressing an important problem in cell biology, that of how cells sense and control the size of their organelles. She identified a biochemical modification of the nuclear transport receptor importin α as a sensor that scales intracellular structures to cell size.

Advocacy for collaborative structures in science

Heald has written about the challenges of starting a lab as a new Assistant Professor, and the benefits of collaborating with her neighbors Matt Welch and Karsten Weis to create a nurturing scientific and educational environment.

Awards and honors

• 1999: Pew Scholars Award in the Biomedical Sciences.

• 2005: American Society for Cell Biology Women in Cell Biology Junior Award.

• 2006: National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award.

• 2010 and 2016: UC Berkeley Outstanding Postdoc Mentoring Award.

• 2017: Fellow, American Society for Cell Biology.

• 2018-19: Leon Henkin Citation for distinguished service enhancing equity, inclusion and diversity.

• 2019: Member, National Academy of Sciences.

• 2021: American Society for Cell Biology Keith R. Porter Lecture

• 2022: Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

• 2022: American Society for Cell Biology Sandra K. Masur Senior Leadership Award

• 2023: Member, American Association for the Advancement of Science

Academic service

Heald has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Cell Biology and Developmental Cell. She is currently an editor for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and a co-author of textbooks Molecular Biology of the Cell and Essential Cell Biology.

References

  1. "Faculty Research Page". Department of Molecular & Cell Biology. Retrieved 2019-05-17.
  2. Brownlee, Christopher; Heald, Rebecca (7 February 2019). "Importin α Partitioning to the Plasma Membrane Regulates Intracellular Scaling". Cell. 176 (4): 805–815.e8. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2018.12.001. PMC 6368448. PMID 30639102.
  3. ^ Manke, Kara (2019-05-01). "Eight Berkeley faculty elected to National Academy of Sciences". Berkeley News. Retrieved 2019-05-17.
  4. "Heald Lab Publications". mcb.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2019-05-17.
  5. ^ "The Science of Size: Rebecca Heald Explores Size Control in Amphibians – Biomedical Beat Blog – National Institute of General Medical Sciences". Retrieved 2019-05-17.
  6. ^ Heald, Rebecca (2010-06-22). "Rebecca Heald". Current Biology. 20 (12): R503–R504. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2010.05.012. ISSN 0960-9822. PMID 20627848. S2CID 2050009.
  7. "Home | BEST". bioregion.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2019-05-22.
  8. "Rebecca Heald Elected to the National Academy of Sciences". www.xenbase.org. Retrieved 2019-05-22.
  9. Brown, Katherine S.; Blower, Michael D.; Maresca, Thomas J.; Grammer, Timothy C.; Harland, Richard M.; Heald, Rebecca (2007-03-12). "Xenopus tropicalis egg extracts provide insight into scaling of the mitotic spindle". The Journal of Cell Biology. 176 (6): 765–770. doi:10.1083/jcb.200610043. ISSN 0021-9525. PMC 2064050. PMID 17339377.
  10. Good, Matthew C.; Vahey, Michael D.; Skandarajah, Arunan; Fletcher, Daniel A.; Heald, Rebecca (2013-11-15). "Cytoplasmic Volume Modulates Spindle Size During Embryogenesis". Science. 342 (6160): 856–860. Bibcode:2013Sci...342..856G. doi:10.1126/science.1243147. ISSN 0036-8075. PMC 4094345. PMID 24233724.
  11. Chan, Yee-Hung M.; Marshall, Wallace F. (2012-09-07). "How cells know the size of their organelles". Science. 337 (6099): 1186–1189. Bibcode:2012Sci...337.1186C. doi:10.1126/science.1223539. ISSN 0036-8075. PMC 3625396. PMID 22955827.
  12. Brownlee, Christopher; Heald, Rebecca (2019-02-07). "Importin α Partitioning to the Plasma Membrane Regulates Intracellular Scaling". Cell. 176 (4): 805–815.e8. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2018.12.001. ISSN 1097-4172. PMC 6368448. PMID 30639102.
  13. Heald, Rebecca (2018-04-23). "A lab co-op helps young faculty members to thrive". Nature. 556 (7702): 409. Bibcode:2018Natur.556..409H. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-04923-6. PMID 29686370. S2CID 5060355.
  14. "07.14.99 - Awards". www.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2019-05-22.
  15. "Women in Cell Biology Awards". ASCB. Retrieved 2019-05-22.
  16. "09.20.2006 - Researcher wins $2.6 million NIH Pioneer Award". www.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2019-05-22.
  17. "Campus celebrates its postdocs, and postdocs honor a mentor". Berkeley News. 24 September 2010. Retrieved 2019-05-22.
  18. "ASCB Names 67 Society Fellows for 2017". ASCB. 2017-11-14. Retrieved 2019-05-22.
  19. "Leon A. Henkin Citation for Distinguished Service | Academic Senate". academic-senate.berkeley.edu. Retrieved 2019-05-22.
  20. "Editors & Staff | JCB". jcb.rupress.org. Retrieved 2019-05-17.
  21. "Editorial Board: Developmental Cell". www.cell.com. Retrieved 2019-05-17.

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