Grace McLaughlin

Grace Mclaughlin
Biology Graduate Student
gamclaug@live.unc.edu

Filamentous growing fungi can contain hundreds to millions of nuclei within a single cell. In our model organism Ashbya gossypii, nuclei residing within a shared cytosol divide asynchronously from one another. Despite this nuclear autonomy, these large cells also tightly regulate the number of nuclei per unit cell volume. How are these nuclei asynchronous in a common cytosol where cell cycle regulator molecules should be free to diffuse? And how is the nuclear to cytoplasmic ratio controlled at the same time?

Advised by Amy Gladfelter at Duke and co-mentored by Tim Elston, I combine live cell microscopy, mathematical modeling, and machine learning to answer these questions.