What's Been Happening in the Titus Lab

August 16, 2021
    Great news!!  Our R01 to study the "Mechanism of Myosin-based Filopodia Formation" has been successfully renewed for four more years by NIGMS NIH!!
    The renewal of this grant is thanks to the dedicated and tremendous work of TLab members and awesome collaborators over the past 5 - 6 years, resulting in several key discoveries and papers.  Thanks to you all and looking forward to four more years of filopodia myosin fun!
  (and another big thanks to NIGMS for the continued support of our research)
August 6, 2021
    
The lab has received an equipment supplement to upgrade our shiny new Nikon Ti2 to a spinning disc confocal.  Looking forward to collecting alot of data of our awesome Dicty making filopdodia.  
   Thank you NIGMS NIH for support of our work!  
May 24, 2021
    BIG review on myosins in filopodia, microvilli and stereocilia is published in Current Biology as part of a Special Issue on the Cytoskeleton.  
May 20, 2021
   Congratulations to our former grad student Ashley - the last half of her thesis work on VASP-mediated recruitment of DdMyo7 as an essential step in filopodia formation is accepted for publication in eLife!!!!!!  A big shout-out to Amy who provided absolutely critical data for the paper revision.  
March 22, 2021
   Our fun collaboration with the Fritz-Laylin lab (UMass, Amherst) to look at actin cytoskeleton-associated genes in chytrid fungi is published in Current Biology.
   Really looking forward to learning all about what the myosins do in these cool critters.  
March 9, 2021
   Casey's NIH F31 Predoctoral fellowship from NIGMS is funded.  CONGRATULATIONS!!!!  Well done.
February 16, 2021
  Casey presented his poster on "Characterization of a filopodia myosin motor" at the virtual Biophysics Meeting. 
December 31, 2020
   Our long-time collaborator Dr Anne Houdusse (Institut Curie) is awarded "Ordre national du Mérite au grade de chevalier " by the French Academy of Science for her important mechanistic and structural work on myosin motors.
   Congratulations, Anne!
September 1, 2020
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 Annnika is headed to Northwestern to start the PhD program in the Biomedical    Science program. Good luck Annika!  



 
August 24, 2020
     ​​​​​Maham Zia, a recent Reed College Physics graduate, joins the lab as a Researcher 1.
     Great to have you working with us Maham!
July 30, 2020
   Our new paper with Hanna Brzeska and Ed Korn (NHLBI, NIH) on "Dictyostelium myosin 1F and myosin 1E inhibit actin waves in a lipid‐binding‐dependent and motor‐independent manner" is now online in Cytoskeleton.
July 21, 2020
 
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  Ashley Arthur successfully defended her PhD thesis on MyTH-FERM Myosin based filopodia initiation. 
   Ashley was awarded an NIH F32 Postdoctoral Fellowship from NIGMS to pursue work in the Howard Lab at Yale University. Good luck Ashley!  Looking forward to more great science from you in the future (even if it will be on microtubules...).                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
July 1, 2020
    Amy Crawford joins us as a Researcher 1, another awesome Gustavus Adolphus alumnus (class of 2020) working in the Titus lab.
    Welcome aboard Amy!
January 20, 2020
    Our collaborative work with Hanna Brzeska and Ed Korn (NHLBI, NIH) on "Basic-hydrophobic sites are localized in conserved positions inside and outside of PH domains and affect localization of Dictyostelium myosin 1s" is published in MBoC.
October, 2019
    More well-deserved recognition - our collaborator Dr Anne Houdusse (Institut Curie) has been selected as a Member of the French Académie des Sciences, section Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Genomics.  
October 21, 2019
     Biswaprakash Mahanta (MCDB&G Grad program) joins the Titus lab for a rotation to learn all about the way of the amoeba and its filopodia myosin.
October 19, 2019
   Our new paper "Optimized filopodia formation requires myosin tail domain cooperation" is published in PNAS 
August 23, 2019
  It's Livia's last day in the Titus Lab - she is heading off to Graduate Study in Biology program at UCSD.  Best of luck!  Looking forward to all of the cool science you'll be doing in the future. 
July 29 2019
  Meg gave a talk at GRC - Motile and Contractile Systems meeting highlighting Ashley's work on MF Myosin and VASP cooperation during filopodia formation 
June 17 2019
    Annika Schroder joins us as a Researcher 1, continuing the tradition of awesome Gustavus Adolphus alumni (class of 2019) working in the Titus lab.
    Welcome aboard Annika!
June 16 2019
   
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Ashley heads off to the world-famous Physiology Course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA - a third generation Physiology Course Student and/or Faculty!


 
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  2 June, 2019
      The T lab takes on the Zumbro river!
 3 June, 2019
      Heidi P joins the lab as a participant in the summer LSSURP
      program to perform genomic engineering on true wild type
      Dictys.
May 18, 2019
Min muscle

  Dr Mike Ostap (https://www.med.upenn.edu/ostaplab/) presents the keynote at the Minnesota Muscle symposium and the Titus lab presented posters at the poster session 
 
January 18, 2019
   Hibo received an Undergraduate Reseach award (UROP) for her proposal to engineer amoeba's using CRISPR
December 14, 2018
  Our awesome collaborator Dr Anne Houdusse (Institut Curie) is awarded the prestigious Jean-Pierre Lecocq Prize from the Institut de France Académe de Sciences for her important work on the molecular mechanism of myosin motor force generation and understanding how drugs developed for the treatment of cardiovascular disease impact motor function.
   Congratulations, Anne!
December 1-5, 2018
     Meg co-chaired a subgroup on Evolutionary Cell Biology with Holly Goodson (Notre Dame), and Ashley and Livia presented posters at ASCB meeting in San Diego, CA
November 26, 2018
    Ashley imaged amoebas on Airyscan with Dr. Jordan Beach at Loyola University
November 5, 2018
    Taylor Harding joins the lab for a postdoctoral fellow project. Welcome, Taylor!
3mt cat whiskers
October, 1 2018
 Ashley gave a short presentation at the GCD retreat, and won a cell biology award and a travel award from the annual DBC symposium for best graduate student poster. 
 
September 10, 2018
    Krisna Van Dyke (MCDB&G Grad program) joins the Titus lab for a rotation, welcome Krisna!
September 1, 2018
    Dr. Benjamin Binder joins Ausberg for a job as Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry. Congrats Ben, good luck!
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ugust 9, 2018
Cierra presented her work at the LSSURP symposium. She's headed back to Hampton University after a great summer. Good luck, Cierra.




 
July 10, 2018
   Ashley gave a talk about her work "MyTH FERM myosin and VASP cooperation during filopodia formation" at the GRC cytoskeletal motors conference in Dover, Vermont and will chair the GRS for the meeting in 2020. 

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June 15, 2018
   Cierra A joins us for a summer project with the LSSURP program, welcome, Cierra!
May 30, 2018
   Livia Songster was promoted to lab technician and will continue her work in the lab studying the role of MyTH FERM myosin dimerization in filopodia formation. 
 March 31, 2018
LS NCUR

    Livia Songster was awarded a travel grant to attend NCUR and presented her poster "Role of MyTH4 FERM Myosin in filopodia initiation within Dictyostelium discoideum"
 
March 30, 2018
   Casey Eddington joined the Titus Lab from the BMBB graduate program. Welcome, Casey!
March 26, 2018
  DR. Ben Binder joined the Titus Lab for a postdoctoral position prior to his faculty job at Augsburg University in Fall!
March 1, 2018
   The review on "Myosin-Driven Intracellular Transport" in Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology is now online.
Feb 1, 2018
    Ashley Arthur was awarded an F31 fellowship from NIGMS for her project studying DdMyo7 and VASP cooperation in filopodia formation.
January 1, 2018

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Titus Lab Alum Dr Karl Petersen was awarded the prestigious Marie-Skłodowska-Curie Actions - Individual Fellowship from the European Commission. Well done, Karl!
Dec 2017
   Awesome Titus lab member Livia Songster was awarded a UROP undergraduate research award for her project on the DdMyo7 Lever arm. Congrats, Livia! 
June 29, 2017
Our collaborative paper with the Houdusse lab  “Myosin 7 and its adaptors link cadherins to actin” is published in Nature Communications.
June 1, 2017

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We were awarded a four-year NIH grant from NIGMS to support our project the Mechanism of myosin motor-dependent filopod extension.
   Hooray!

 

April 27, 2017

Teaching Award
CONGRATULATIONS, MARGARET TITUS!

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Recipient of a 2017 Horace T. Morse-University of Minnesota Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Contributions to Graduate and Professional Education

 Award Info Link

 

 

December 13, 2016
Our major paper describing the conserved roles of MyTH-FERM myosins in filopodia formation is published in PNAS.
December 9, 2016-

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Congrats Dr. Karl  Petersen on your Ph.D. Thesis! "Structure-Function Analysis of Motor Proteins:  Insights from Conventional and Unconventional Myosins" Advisors Dr.  Margaret Titus & Dr. David Thomas. Best wishes as you continue your career in the Houdusse lab at Institut Curie in Paris, France.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
       
June 1, 2016 
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We were awarded a two-year AHA Grant-In-Aid for the project entitled: Mechanism of myosin motor-dependent filopod extension.
May 24, 2016
Our collaborative paper with the Houdusse lab describing the structure of DdMyo7 MyTH-FERM domains revealing the convergent evolution of these domains is published in PNAS.