Julia Spear, Graduate Student of Katharine White, Featured for Paper in the Journal of Cell Science
Julia Spear, a fifth year graduate student in the laboratory of Katharine White, Clare Booth Luce Assistant Professor, has been profiled by the Journal of Cell Science for her recent publication. The paper, entitled “Single-cell intracellular pH dynamics regulate the cell cycle by timing G1 exit and the G2 transition,” appears in Volume 136, Issue 10 of the journal.
Her research focuses on the study of how intracellular pH (pHi) changes during cell cycle progression. Normal human epithelial cells function in a pHi range of 7.0-7.2, but transient pHi changes are necessary for cell behaviors such as cell movement, cell division, and programmed cell death. While it is known that pHi changes during these processes, very little is known of the detailed nature of how pHi varies with time or across heterogeneous cell populations. Spear was able to investigate these details using microscopy to measure pHi in single cells using a fluorescent biosensor. She captured images as cells progressed through the cell cycle and found that single cell pHi oscillates during growth and division, with dynamic pHi values corresponding to specific events in the cycle. Additionally, she found that manipulating pHi can alter the lengths and transitions of cell cycle stages. Ultimately, being able to accurately describe pHi over time improves the understanding of how cells time and regulate cell division. This work also suggests routes for therapeutically manipulating or perturbing the cell cycle in normal pH-dependent cell processes like wound healing or in diseases with dysregulated pHi such as cancer and neurodegeneration.
Spear first began research during the summer before her senior year at Susquehanna University prior to coming to Notre Dame. She credits White’s guidance and mentorship in helping to achieve these important research results. After graduation, Spear plans to pursue either a postdoctoral fellowship or an industrial job with a biology focus.
Originally published by chemistry.nd.edu on May 31, 2023.
atLatest Research
- Mary Gallagher appointed dean of the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global AffairsMary Gallagher, the Amy and Alan Lowenstein Chair in Democracy, Democratization and Human Rights and director of the International Institute at the University of Michigan, has been appointed the Marilyn Keough Dean of the Keough School of Global Affairs by University President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. Gallagher, who will also hold a tenured faculty position in the Keough School, begins her five-year term as dean on July 1.
- Disadvantaged entrepreneurs often fear success, but new research can helpWhen low-income entrepreneurs start their own businesses, they frequently fear failure—a well-documented phenomenon. But over time, they may also fear success, given the costs and unknowns it can bring—and this barrier to growth is under-studied and underappreciated. A new study from a Keough School expert breaks new ground by explaining this fear and offers five recommendations to help entrepreneurs overcome it and move out of poverty.
- ND Law Graduate Justice Fellows Lead Charge for Justice Research at the Center for Social ConcernsNotre Dame Law students Kaitlyn Bowe and Dennis Wieboldt completed a year-long fellowship with the University of Notre Dame Center for Social Concerns, an…
- NDTL shares aerospace research with local high school studentsMark H. Ross, senior research scientist at NDTL Propulsion & Power, recently stepped out of the lab and into a local high school. Ross, who received his Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Notre Dame in 2014, visited the computer science and engineering magnet…
- Notre Dame senior wins Best Publication Image AwardNotre Dame senior Kevin Armknecht of the Berthiaume Institute for Precision Health has been recognized by ND’s Integrated Imaging Facility (NDIIF) with the Best Publication Imaging Award, based on images he created in a recent Nanoscale Advances publication. Armknecht, a pre-professional studies…
- A&L and engineering faculty to create new curriculum for responsible computingFaculty from the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Engineering are working together to integrate responsible computing instruction across the undergraduate curriculum, to better equip students to think critically and thoughtfully about technology. The project, “Computing, Culture, and Society: A Community-based, Intersectional Approach to Responsible Computing Across the Curriculum,” is led by Katherine Walden and Karla Badillo-Urquiola.