Antonina I. Roll-Mecak
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Antonina Roll-Mecak (born in
Sibiu Sibiu ( , , , Hungarian: ''Nagyszeben'', , Transylvanian Saxon: ''Härmeschtat'' or ''Hermestatt'') is a city in central Romania, situated in the historical region of Transylvania. Located some north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles th ...
,
Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...
) is a Romanian-born American molecular
biophysicist Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...
. She is currently the Senior Investigator and Chief of the Unit of Cell Biology and Biophysics at the
National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...
. She holds appointments at the
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) is a part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). It conducts and funds research on brain and nervous system disorders and has a budget of just over US$2.03 billion. The ...
and at the Biochemistry and Biophysics Center of the
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...
. Roll-Mecak is known for her work on cytoskeletal regulation, mechanisms of microtubule severing enzymes ( spastin and
Katanin Katanin is a microtubule-severing AAA protein. It is named after the Japanese sword called a katana. Katanin is a heterodimeric protein first discovered in sea urchins. It contains a 60 kDa ATPase subunit, encoded by '' KATNA1'', which functio ...
) and microtubule repair, and for her pioneering work in deciphering the complexities of the tubulin code. Her work is relevant to the treatment of cancer and nervous system disorders.


Early life and education

Antonina Roll-Mecak was born in
Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...
. Her father was an engineer and scientist. Growing up, her father tutored her in
Newtonian physics Classical mechanics is a physical theory describing the motion of objects such as projectiles, parts of machinery, spacecraft, planets, stars, and galaxies. The development of classical mechanics involved substantial change in the methods ...
, creating complex pulley-related problems for her to solve, and taught her the principles of programming through Fortran punch cards. During summers, she attended camps focused on math and science, and trained for academic Olympiads. She also spent summer breaks training for and competing in piano competitions, and as a child she aspired to be a concert pianist. Roll-Mecak attended high school at the Gheorghe Lazăr National College in
Sibiu Sibiu ( , , , Hungarian: ''Nagyszeben'', , Transylvanian Saxon: ''Härmeschtat'' or ''Hermestatt'') is a city in central Romania, situated in the historical region of Transylvania. Located some north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles th ...
, in the
Transylvania Transylvania ( or ; ; or ; Transylvanian Saxon dialect, Transylvanian Saxon: ''Siweberjen'') is a List of historical regions of Central Europe, historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and ...
region. The school specializes in science education. She received her bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from
Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly known as Cooper Union, is a private college on Cooper Square in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-s ...
in New York City, which operates on a full-tuition scholarship basis. During her undergraduate studies, she completed a summer internship at
Mount Sinai School of Medicine The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS or Mount Sinai), formerly the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, is a private medical school in New York City, New York, United States. The school is the academic teaching arm of the Mount Sina ...
, where she worked with Ernie Mehler and Harel Weinstein. Part of her inspiration to pursue structural biology came from a seminar on protein structure she attended at the
New York Academy of Sciences The New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS), originally founded as the Lyceum of Natural History in January 1817, is a nonprofit professional society based in New York City, with more than 20,000 members from 100 countries. It is the fourth-oldes ...
as a student. She received her
Bachelor of Engineering A Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) or a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) is an undergraduate academic degree awarded to a college graduate majoring in an engineering discipline at a higher education institution. In the United Kingdom, a Ba ...
summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...
in 1996. Roll-Mecak received her PhD in
molecular biophysics Molecular biophysics is a rapidly evolving interdisciplinary area of research that combines concepts in physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and biology. It seeks to understand biomolecular systems and explain biological function in ter ...
in 2002 from the
Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is a Private university, private Medical research, biomedical Research university, research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and pro ...
. There, she studied with Stephen Burley, and was mentored by other notable scientists such as
Günter Blobel Günter Blobel (; May 21, 1936 – February 18, 2018) was a Silesian German and American biologist and 1999 Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology for the discovery that proteins have intrinsic signals that govern their transport and localization in ...
and
Roderick MacKinnon Roderick MacKinnon (born February 19, 1956) is an American biophysicist, neuroscientist, and businessman. He is a professor of molecular neurobiology and biophysics at Rockefeller University who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Pete ...
. Her PhD work used X-ray
crystallography Crystallography is the branch of science devoted to the study of molecular and crystalline structure and properties. The word ''crystallography'' is derived from the Ancient Greek word (; "clear ice, rock-crystal"), and (; "to write"). In J ...
to determine the structure and mechanism of the two translation initiation GTPases essential for assembling an 80S
ribosome Ribosomes () are molecular machine, macromolecular machines, found within all cell (biology), cells, that perform Translation (biology), biological protein synthesis (messenger RNA translation). Ribosomes link amino acids together in the order s ...
primed for protein synthesis.


Career

After receiving her doctorate, she worked at the
University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It is part of the University of California system and is dedic ...
, from 2003 to 2009 as a
Damon Runyon Alfred Damon Runyon (October 4, 1880 – December 10, 1946) was an American journalist and short-story writer. He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway theatre, Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Proh ...
an
Burroughs Wellcome
Career Award postdoctoral fellow with
Ron Vale Ronald David Vale ForMemRS (born 1959) is an American biochemist and cell biologist. He is a Janelia Senior Group Leader at HHMI and an emeritus professor at the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Fr ...
. There, Antonina Roll-Mecak identified spastin as a novel microtubule-severing enzyme and used hybrid structural biology methods and light microscopy to reveal the first three dimensional structure of a microtubule severing enzyme and to unravel its mechanism of action. Her analyses led to the proposal that severing enzymes break the microtubule by pulling single tubulin dimers out of the microtubule lattice. In 2010 she became a principal investigator and unit head at the
National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...
with a primary appointment in the
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) is a part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). It conducts and funds research on brain and nervous system disorders and has a budget of just over US$2.03 billion. The ...
(NINDS) and a joint appointment in the Biochemistry and Biophysics Center at the
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...
(NHLBI). In 2017 Roll-Mecak became a tenured Senior Investigator. Her work focuses on how the genetic (isoform variation) and chemical diversity (posttranslational modifications) of tubulin regulate the dynamics and mechanical properties of microtubules and constitutes a code that is interpreted by microtubule based motors and associated proteins. This code is also referred to as the "tubulin code.".


Personal life

Roll-Mecak has a son. In her spare time, she enjoys classical music, and has noted that while in graduate school in New York City she often attended concerts or opera performances in between running her experiments. When a colleague leaves her lab, Roll-Mecak is known to give them a
daruma doll A is a hollow, round, Japanese traditional dolls, Japanese traditional doll modeled after Bodhidharma, the founder of the Zen tradition of Buddhism. These dolls, though typically red and depicting the Indian monk, Bodhidharma, vary greatly in c ...
, a lucky charm in Japanese folk culture that comes with its eyes unpainted. The recipient paints in one of the eyes and makes a wish, and the second eye is added when the wish is granted.


Awards

* Burroughs Wellcome Career Award * NIH Pathway to Independence Award
Searle Scholar
Award (2010) * Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award from the
Biophysical Society The Biophysical Society is an international scientific society whose purpose is to lead the development and dissemination of knowledge in biophysics. Founded in 1958, the Society currently consists of over 7,000 members in academia, government, an ...
(2015)
Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists
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(2016) *
Keith R. Porter Keith Roberts Porter (June 11, 1912 – May 2, 1997) was a Canadian- American cell biologist. He created pioneering biology techniques and research using electron microscopy of cells. Porter also contributed to developing other experimental ce ...
Award (2017) * Emerging Leader Prize from the
American Society for Cell Biology The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) is a professional society that was founded in 1960. (2016) * International Award from the
Biochemical Society The Biochemical Society is a learned society in the United Kingdom in the field of biochemistry, including all the cellular and molecular biosciences. It was founded in 1911 and acquired the existing '' Biochemical Journal'' the following year. T ...
(2023)


Select publications

* * * * Vemu, Annapurna; Szczesna, Ewa; Zehr, Elena A.; Spector, Jeffrey O.; Grigorieff, Nikolaus; Deaconescu, Alexandra M.; Roll-Mecak, Antonina (2018-08-24).
Severing enzymes amplify microtubule arrays through lattice GTP-tubulin incorporation". ''Science''.
361 (6404): eaau1504. doi:10.1126/science.aau1504.
ISSN An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit to uniquely identify a periodical publication (periodical), such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs a ...
 1095-9203. PMC 6510489.
PMID PubMed is an openly accessible, free database which includes primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of ...
 30139843. * Zehr, Elena A.; Szyk, Agnieszka; Szczesna, Ewa; Roll-Mecak, Antonina (2020-01-06)
"Katanin Grips the β-Tubulin Tail through an Electropositive Double Spiral to Sever Microtubules". ''Developmental Cell''.
52 (1): 118–131.e6. doi:10.1016/j.devcel.2019.10.010.
ISSN An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit to uniquely identify a periodical publication (periodical), such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs a ...
 1878-1551. PMC 7060837.
PMID PubMed is an openly accessible, free database which includes primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of ...
 31735665. *


References


External links

*
Website for the Roll-Mecak Lab

Oral history interview transcript with Antonina Roll-Mecak on 1 June 2020, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives

NIH interview video with Dr. Antonina Roll-MecakNIH Catalyst article on Roll-Mecak
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roll-Mecak, Antonina Romanian women physicists Romanian physicists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Molecular biophysics Molecular biologists Cooper Union alumni Women physicists 21st-century Romanian scientists Romanian academics