Prof. Thomas D. Pollard Yale University, USA

Thomas Pollard is Sterling Professor at Yale University with appointments in three departments: Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology; Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry; and Cell Biology. He is a graduate of Pomona College and Harvard Medical School. As a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins Medical School, Salk Institute... read moreand Yale University, he has investigated the molecular basis of cellular motility and cytokinesis. His laboratory discovered and characterized proteins that produce forces for cells to move. They combined microscopy, biochemistry, biophysics, molecular biology and mathematical modeling to provide the quantitative evidence required to test a detailed molecular explanation for how Arp2/3 complex stimulates the assembly of actin filaments that produce forces for cellular movements and endocytosis. His group has used the same approaches to learn how fission yeast cells divide in two during cytokinesis.