Joe Lutkenhaus
Joe Lutkenhaus (actually Joseph Frank Lutkenhaus ; born April 24, 1947 in Decorah , Iowa ) is an American microbiologist , molecular geneticist, and immunologist at the University of Kansas Medical Center .
Lutkenhaus earned a bachelor's degree in organic chemistry from Iowa State University in 1969 and a PhD in biochemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1974 . His dissertation was entitled Kinetics of phosphate incorporation into Escherichia coli and regulation of RNA accumulation in glucose starved cells . As a postdoctoral fellow he worked from 1975 to 1978 with William Donachie at Edinburgh University on cell division in bacteria and 1979/1980 at the University of Connecticut Health Science Center . He has been a faculty member at the University of Kansas Medical School since 1981 . Since 2006 he has been Distinguished Professor of Microbiology there.
Lutkenhaus examined the genetics of bacterial cell division in the model organism E. coli and discovered the gene for FtsZ as a central element of cell division. Lutkenhaus was able to show that FtsZ limits the rate of cell division and is the target molecule of various cell division inhibitors . Together with Erfei Bi, he published in a pioneering paper in Nature that FtsZ is located as a ring at the point of future cell division, which was the first time to show that intracellular proteins also occur in bacteria for a specific purpose at a specific location. This led to the discovery of proteins of the cytoskeleton , which until then were considered reserved for eukaryotes .
Awards (selection)
- 2002 member of the American Academy of Microbiology
- 2012 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize
- 2014 member of the National Academy of Sciences
Web links
- Joe Lutkenhaus, Ph.D. and laboratory at the University of Kansas (kumc.edu)
Individual evidence
- ^ Joe Lutkenhaus wins the prestigious Horwitz Prize at the University of Kansas (kumc.edu); Retrieved October 2, 2012
- ↑ Joe Lutkenhaus. In: nasonline.org. Retrieved April 17, 2018 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lutkenhaus, Joe |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Lutkenhaus, Joseph; Lutkenhaus, Joseph Frank |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American microbiologist, molecular biologist, and immunologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 24, 1947 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Decorah |