Nancy Kedersha
{{Short description|American cell biologist and micrographer}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Nancy Kedersha
| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1951}}
| birth_place = Hackensack, New Jersey, U.S.
| nationality = American
| fields = Microscopy
| workplaces = UCLA
| alma_mater = Bucknell University (Bachelors)
Rutgers University (PhD)
| thesis_year = 1983
| doctoral_advisor = Richard A Berg
| academic_advisors = Leonard Rome
| awards = Lennart Nilsson Award
Nikon Small World finalist
}}
Nancy Kedersha (born 1951) is an American cell biologist and micrographer. She got her Ph.D. from Rutgers University where she worked in Richard Berg's lab studying the characteristics and assembly of prolyl hydroxylases. Afterwards she joined Leonard Rome's lab at UCLA as a post-doctoral fellow where she co-discovered the vault (organelle). Subsequently, she worked at ImmunoGen Inc. where she worked on staining and photographing different cancer cells. She then worked as an instructor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Paul Anderson's lab, where her work focused on studying stress granule formation. In late-2020, she retired. In addition to her contributions as a scientist, Kedersha has been quite successful in different microscopy competitions. She is a four-time Nikon Small World finalist and in 2011 she won the Lennart Nilsson Award.
Education and early life
Kedersha is the daughter of Richard Kedersha, a professor of business administration and basketball coach at Rutgers University.{{Cite web|title=Richard Kedersha Obituary (2008) FloridaToday|url=https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/floridatoday/name/richard-kedersha-obituary?pid=119759724|access-date=2021-09-28|website=Legacy.com}} She graduated high school from Rutherford High School in the class of 1969.[https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/499174656/ "Rutherford is looking for distinguished graduates to add to list"], South Bergenite, January 29, 2003. Accessed September 29, 2021, via Newspapers.com. "cell biologist Nancy Kedersha, '69, whose examination of the components of a cell led to the identification of a new organelle named 'vault,' 1997."{{Cite web|title=Welcome to the Vault Website: Maintained by the Rome Laboratory at UCLA: OPEN_CMS|url=https://vaults.arc.ucla.edu/pages/nancykedersha|access-date=2021-09-29|website=vaults.arc.ucla.edu}} After completing her bachelor's in biology from Bucknell University in 1973, Kedersha pursued her graduate studies at Rutgers University in Richard Berg's lab where she characterized the purification, assembly, and biosynthesis of prolyl hydroxylase.{{Cite journal|last1=Berg|first1=R. A.|last2=Kedersha|first2=N. L.|last3=Guzman|first3=N. A.|date=1979-04-25|title=Purification and partial characterization of the two nonidentical subunits of prolyl hydroxylase|journal=The Journal of Biological Chemistry|volume=254|issue=8|pages=3111–3118|doi=10.1016/S0021-9258(17)30189-8|issn=0021-9258|pmid=218963|doi-access=free}}{{Cite journal|last1=Kedersha|first1=N. L.|last2=Berg|first2=R. A.|date=July 1981|title=An improved method for the purification of vertebrate prolyl hydroxylase by affinity chromatography|url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6286234|journal=Collagen and Related Research|volume=1|issue=4|pages=345–353|doi=10.1016/s0174-173x(81)80011-8|issn=0174-173X|pmid=6286234}}{{Cite journal|last1=Kedersha|first1=N. L.|last2=Tkacz|first2=J. S.|last3=Berg|first3=R. A.|date=1985-10-08|title=Biosynthesis of prolyl hydroxylase: evidence for two separate dolichol-media pathways of glycosylation|url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3002430|journal=Biochemistry|volume=24|issue=21|pages=5960–5967|doi=10.1021/bi00342a041|issn=0006-2960|pmid=3002430}} In 1983 she obtained her PhD in biochemistry.{{Cite web|title=Lennart Nilsson Award 2011: The Secret Life of Cells – in Colour|url=https://analyticalscience.wiley.com/do/10.1002/imaging.2768|access-date=2021-09-29|website=Wiley Analytical Science|language=en|doi=10.1002/imaging.2768|doi-broken-date=1 November 2024}}
Career
From 1983 to 1988 Kedersha worked as a post doctoral fellow in Leonard Rome's lab at UCLA. In collaboration with Rome, she co-discovered the vault (organelle).{{Cite journal|date=1986-09-01|title=Isolation and characterization of a novel ribonucleoprotein particle: large structures contain a single species of small RNA|journal=The Journal of Cell Biology|volume=103|issue=3|pages=699–709|doi=10.1083/jcb.103.3.699|issn=0021-9525|pmc=2114306|pmid=2943744|last1=Kedersha|first1=N. L.|last2=Rome|first2=L. H.}} The vault is this large cytoplasmic organelle found in eukaryotes, but whose function has not fully been elucidated.{{Cite journal|date=1990-04-01|title=Vaults. II. Ribonucleoprotein structures are highly conserved among higher and lower eukaryotes|journal=The Journal of Cell Biology|volume=110|issue=4|pages=895–901|doi=10.1083/jcb.110.4.895|issn=0021-9525|pmc=2116106|pmid=1691193|last1=Kedersha|first1=N. L.|last2=Miquel|first2=M. C.|last3=Bittner|first3=D.|last4=Rome|first4=L. H.}} Recent studies done in trypanosome suggest it plays a role in trans-spliced mRNA.{{Cite journal|last1=Kolev|first1=Nikolay G.|last2=Rajan|first2=K. Shanmugha|last3=Tycowski|first3=Kazimierz T.|last4=Toh|first4=Justin Y.|last5=Shi|first5=Huafang|last6=Lei|first6=Yuling|last7=Michaeli|first7=Shulamit|last8=Tschudi|first8=Christian|date=2019-10-25|title=The vault RNA of Trypanosoma brucei plays a role in the production of trans-spliced mRNA|journal=The Journal of Biological Chemistry|volume=294|issue=43|pages=15559–15574|doi=10.1074/jbc.RA119.008580|issn=0021-9258|pmc=6816085|pmid=31439669|doi-access=free}}
After her post-doctoral fellowship, Kedersha worked briefly in industry for ImmunoGen Inc. using microscopy to study cancer cells. She returned to academia where she became an instructor of medicine within Paul Anderson's lab at Brigham and Women's Hospital and studied stress granules.{{Cite journal|last1=Kedersha|first1=N. L.|last2=Gupta|first2=M.|last3=Li|first3=W.|last4=Miller|first4=I.|last5=Anderson|first5=P.|date=1999-12-27|title=RNA-binding proteins TIA-1 and TIAR link the phosphorylation of eIF-2 alpha to the assembly of mammalian stress granules|journal=The Journal of Cell Biology|volume=147|issue=7|pages=1431–1442|doi=10.1083/jcb.147.7.1431|issn=0021-9525|pmc=2174242|pmid=10613902}}{{Cite journal|last1=Kedersha|first1=Nancy|last2=Stoecklin|first2=Georg|last3=Ayodele|first3=Maranatha|last4=Yacono|first4=Patrick|last5=Lykke-Andersen|first5=Jens|last6=Fritzler|first6=Marvin J.|last7=Scheuner|first7=Donalyn|last8=Kaufman|first8=Randal J.|last9=Golan|first9=David E.|last10=Anderson|first10=Paul|date=2005-06-20|title=Stress granules and processing bodies are dynamically linked sites of mRNP remodeling|journal=The Journal of Cell Biology|volume=169|issue=6|pages=871–884|doi=10.1083/jcb.200502088|issn=0021-9525|pmc=2171635|pmid=15967811}}{{Cite journal|last1=Kedersha|first1=Nancy|last2=Panas|first2=Marc D.|last3=Achorn|first3=Christopher A.|last4=Lyons|first4=Shawn|last5=Tisdale|first5=Sarah|last6=Hickman|first6=Tyler|last7=Thomas|first7=Marshall|last8=Lieberman|first8=Judy|last9=McInerney|first9=Gerald M.|last10=Ivanov|first10=Pavel|last11=Anderson|first11=Paul|date=2016-03-28|title=G3BP-Caprin1-USP10 complexes mediate stress granule condensation and associate with 40S subunits|journal=The Journal of Cell Biology|volume=212|issue=7|pages=845–860|doi=10.1083/jcb.201508028|issn=1540-8140|pmc=4810302|pmid=27022092}} While there, she became the director of the confocal microscopy core. She also co-wrote a chapter in Translation Mechanisms and Control.{{Cite web|title=Translation Mechanisms and Control|url=https://cshperspectives.cshlp.org/site/misc/translation_mechanisms_and_control.xhtml|access-date=2021-09-28|website=cshperspectives.cshlp.org}}
Awards and honors
Kedersha has placed ten times in the Nikon Small World competition in which four of those times she was a finalist.{{Cite web|title=Nancy Kedersha|url=https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/people/nancy-kedersha|access-date=2021-09-28|website=Nikon’s Small World|language=en-US}} She has also won the prestigious Lennart Nilsson Award in 2011 for her work in fluorescence microscopy.{{Cite web|title=The secret life of cells – in colour|url=https://www.bionity.com/en/news/134870/the-secret-life-of-cells-in-colour.html|access-date=2021-09-28|website=www.bionity.com|language=en}}{{Cite web|title=Fotografen Lennart Nilsson och Lennart Nilsson Award|url=https://www.lennartnilssonaward.se/|access-date=2021-09-29|website=Lennartnilssonaward.se|language=sv-SE}}
{{Blockquote|text=Nancy Kedersha's colour images open our eyes to the smallest components of life. Through her work she has pushed cell biology into new scientific, pedagogical and aesthetic realms. With the aid of a confocal microscope, she has turned biological data into an artistic experience.|author=Lennart Nilsson award panel}}
References
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Category:Rutgers University alumni
Category:University of California, Los Angeles alumni
Category:Bucknell University alumni
Category:American cell biologists
Category:People from Hackensack, New Jersey