Amy S. Gladfelter, PhD, Duke Health Distinguished Professor of Cell Biology and Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Cell Biology, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of her distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
Gladfelter was one of 120 members and 25 international members whose elections were announced by the Academy on April 28. Robert Calderbank, PhD, Charles S. Sydnor Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, was also elected from Duke.
Gladfelter, who also has appointments in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, is a quantitative cell biologist interested in fundamental mechanisms of cell organization. She uses microscopy, biophysical and genetic approaches, and mathematical modeling to study syncytial cells, which have many nuclei sharing a common cytoplasm and are found in fungi, throughout the human body such as in muscles and in the placenta, and in many plants.
Gladfelter examines how these large cells spatially organize the cytoplasm via biomolecular condensates and sense their shape. One of her current research aims is understanding the form and function of the giant syncytium formed in the human placenta that is essential for pregnancy. A second focus is understanding how syncytial fungi adapt to environmental fluctuations, with a goal of predicting mechanisms of adaptation to extreme conditions.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit institution that was established under a congressional charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It recognizes achievement in science by election to membership, and—with the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine—provides science, engineering, and health policy advice to the federal government and other organizations.
For more, see the story in Duke Today.