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Gia Voeltz
Born
Gia Voeltz

Bloomington, Indiana, United States
Alma materUniversity of California Santa Cruz (BS)
Yale University (PhD)
Harvard Medical School (Postdoctoral)
Known fordiscovering the function of the Reticulon protein family
AwardsMember: National Academy of Sciences 2023
Fellow: American Society for Cell Biology 2023
Investigator: Howard Hughes Medical Institute 2018
Scholar: Howard Hughes Medical Institute 2016
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
Thesis mRNA Stability is Regulated during Early Development by AU-rich Sequences and a Novel Poly(A) Binding Protein, ePAB  (2001)
Doctoral advisorJoan A. Steitz

Gia Voeltz is an American cell biologist. She is a professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. She is known for her research identifying the factors and unraveling the mechanisms that determine the structure and dynamics of the largest organelle in the cell: the endoplasmic reticulum. [1] [2] Her lab has produced paradigm shifting studies on organelle membrane contact sites that have revealed that most cytoplasmic organelles are not isolated entities but are instead physically tethered to an interconnected ER membrane network. [3] [4] [5]

Her research has revealed the fundamental nature of these ER contact sites in regulating the biogenesis of other organelles at positions where they are tethered and closely opposed. [6] [7] [8] [9]

Early life and education

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Gia Voeltz grew up in several different states including Indiana, Hawaii, Minnesota and Upstate New York, where she graduated from Chenango Forks High School. She attended university at the University of California Santa Cruz where she majored in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She performed her senior thesis work in the lab of Manny Ares [10] on pre-spliceosome assembly in yeast. [11] This experience in the Ares lab at UC Santa Cruz inspired her to become a scientist. Her early undergraduate research studying RNA processing led her to pursue a PhD thesis in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University in the lab of Joan A. Steitz, a leading figure in RNA biology. Her PhD research investigated how mRNA stability was regulated during different stages of early development using Xenopus eggs and extract as a model system. [12] [13]

She then moved to Harvard Medical School to join the lab of Tom Rapoport as a Jane Coffin Childs postdoctoral fellow.

Career

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Gia Voeltz was trained as an RNA biologist but made a major switch in scientific sub-fields when she moved to Tom Rapoport’s lab as a postdoc to study how organelles get their shape. As a postdoc, she set out to identify how membrane proteins generate the elaborate shape of the ER. To do this, she used biochemical fractionation of a Xenopus egg in vitro assay for ER network formation.[14] Her postdoctoral studies identified the Reticulon family of ER membrane proteins and demonstrated their conserved role in generating the structure of the tubular ER network.[2] The hairpin "wedge" mechanism proposed was that Reticulon has two short hairpin transmembrane domains that occupy more area in the outer leaflet to generate the high membrane curvature found in tubules.[2]

Gia Voeltz moved to University of Colorado Boulder in 2006[15] to start her own lab. Her lab leveraged spinning disk confocal microscopy to visualize the reticulon-generated dynamic tubular ER network in live cells at high resolution.[3] This led to the observation that ER tubule dynamics often occurred at positions where the ER tubules were tightly tethered to other dynamic organelles like endosomes and mitochondria.[3][4]

Multi-color live cell fluorescence imaging complemented by high resolution electron microscopy and tomography revealed that the vast majority of endosomes and mitochondria are tethered to the ER at contact sites. In a hallmark paper published in 2011, Voeltz lab, in a collaboration with Jodi Nunnari’s lab, showed that ER tubules wrap around mitochondria to define the position where mitochondria constrict and divide in animal and yeast cells.[6]

Her lab has gone on to show that ER contact sites also regulate early and late endosome fission,[7][8] RNA granule division,[9] and mitochondrial fusion.[16] [17] These works establish the ER network as a master regulator of organelle biogenesis through ER contact sites.[5][18]

Gia Voeltz became a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Scholar in 2016[19] and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator in 2018.[20][21] She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2023.[22]

Awards and honors

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Institutions

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References

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  1. ^ Westrate LM, Lee JE, Prinz WA, Voeltz GK (January 2015). "Form follows function: the importance of endoplasmic reticulum shape". Annual Review of Biochemistry. 84: 791–811. doi:10.1146/annurev-biochem-072711-163501. PMID 25580528. S2CID 207675243.
  2. ^ a b c Voeltz GK, Prinz WA, Shibata Y, Rist JM, Rapoport TA (10 February 2006). "A class of membrane proteins shaping the tubular endoplasmic reticulum". Cell. 124 (3): 573–586. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2005.11.047. PMID 16469703.
  3. ^ a b c Friedman JR, Webster BM, Mastronarde DN, Verhey KJ, Voeltz GK (9 August 2010). "ER sliding dynamics and ER-mitochondrial contacts occur on acetylated microtubules". Journal of Cell Biology. 190 (3): 363–375. doi:10.1083/jcb.200911024. PMC 2922647. PMID 20696706.
  4. ^ a b Friedman JR, Dibenedetto JR, West M, Rowland AA, Voeltz GK (6 February 2013). "Endoplasmic reticulum-endosome contact increases as endosomes traffic and mature". Molecular Biology of the Cell. 24 (7): 1030–1040. doi:10.1091/mbc.E12-10-0733. PMC 3608491. PMID 23389631.
  5. ^ a b Wu H, Carvalho P, Voeltz GK (3 August 2018). "Here, there, and everywhere: The importance of ER membrane contact sites". Science. 361 (6401). doi:10.1126/science.aan5835. PMC 6568312. PMID 30072511.
  6. ^ a b Friedman JR, Lackner LL, West M, Dibenedetto JR, Nunnari J, Voeltz GK (21 October 2011). "ER tubules mark sites of mitochondrial division". Science. 334 (6954): 358–362. Bibcode:2011Sci...334..358F. doi:10.1126/science.1207385. PMC 3366560. PMID 21885730.
  7. ^ a b Rowland AA, Chitwood PJ, Phillips MJ, Voeltz GK (20 November 2014). "ER contact sites define the position and timing of endosome fission". Cell. 159 (5): 1027–1041. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2014.10.023. PMC 4634643. PMID 25416943.
  8. ^ a b Hoyer MJ, Chitwood PJ, Ebmeier CC, Striepen JF, Qi RZ, Old WM, Voeltz GK (13 September 2018). "A Novel Class of ER Membrane Proteins Regulates ER-Associated Endosome Fission". Cell. 175 (1): 254–265. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2018.08.030. PMC 6195207. PMID 30220460.
  9. ^ a b Lee JE, Cathey PI, Wu H, Parker R, Voeltz GK (31 January 2020). "Endoplasmic reticulum contact sites regulate the dynamics of membraneless organelles". Science. 367 (6477). doi:10.1126/science.aay7108. PMC 10088059. PMID 32001628.
  10. ^ Perriman R, Barta I, Voeltz GK, Abelson J, Ares M (10 November 2003). "ATP requirement for Prp5p function is determined by Cus2p and the structure of U2 small nuclear RNA". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 100 (24): 13857–13862. Bibcode:2003PNAS..10013857P. doi:10.1073/pnas.2036312100. PMC 283511. PMID 14610285.
  11. ^ Voeltz GK, Steitz JA (23 August 1998). "AUUUA Sequences Direct mRNA Deadenylation Uncoupled from Decay during Xenopus Early Development". Molecular and Cellular Biology. 18 (12): 7537–7545. doi:10.1128/MCB.18.12.7537. PMC 109334. PMID 9819439.
  12. ^ Voeltz GK, Ongkasuwan J, Standart N, Steitz JA (15 March 2001). "A novel embryonic poly(A) binding protein, ePAB, regulates mRNA deadenylation in Xenopus egg extracts". Genes & Development. 15 (6): 774–788. doi:10.1101/gad.872201. PMC 312653. PMID 11274061.
  13. ^ Dreier L, Rapoport TA (6 March 2000). "In vitro formation of the endoplasmic reticulum occurs independently of microtubules by a controlled fusion reaction". Journal of Cell Biology. 148 (5): 883–898. doi:10.1083/jcb.148.5.883. PMC 2174540. PMID 10704440.
  14. ^ Voeltz GK, Cheeseman I (13 October 2017). "Building a path in cell biology". Molecular Biology of the Cell. 23 (21): 4145–4147. doi:10.1091/mbc.E12-05-0382. PMC 3484087. PMID 23112222.
  15. ^ Abrisch RG, Gumbin SC, Wisniewski BT, Lackner LL, Voeltz GK (25 February 2020). "Fission and fusion machineries converge at ER contact sites to regulate mitochondrial morphology". Journal of Cell Biology. 219 (4). doi:10.1083/jcb.201911122. PMC 7147108. PMID 32328629.
  16. ^ Nguyen TT, Voeltz and GK (30 Nov 2022). "An ER phospholipid hydrolase drives ER-associated mitochondrial constriction for fission and fusion". eLife. 11. doi:10.7554/eLife.84279. PMC 9725753. PMID 36448541.
  17. ^ Voeltz, Gia (speaker) (22 May 2019). Factors and Functions of Organelle Membrane Contact Sites. iBiology. Retrieved 18 January 2024 – via Youtube.
  18. ^ a b "HHMI 2016 Faculty Scholars". HHMI. Retrieved 18 January 2024.
  19. ^ "HHMI Bets Big On 19 New Investigators". HHMI. 23 May 2018. Retrieved 18 January 2024.
  20. ^ a b "Cellular cartographer Voeltz named HHMI investigator, granted $8 million". University of Colorado Boulder. 23 May 2018. Retrieved 18 January 2024.
  21. ^ a b "Pioneering biologist elected to National Academy of Sciences". University of Colorado Boulder. 12 May 2023. Retrieved 18 January 2024.
  22. ^ "Gia K. Voeltz". nasonline.org. National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 18 Jan 2024.
  23. ^ "Nineteen distinguished scientists recognized as 2023 ASCB Fellows". ascb.org. American Society for Cell Biology. 2 August 2023. Retrieved 18 Jan 2024.
  24. ^ "Günter Blobel Early Career Award". ascb.org. American Society for Cell Biology. 2012. Retrieved 18 January 2024.
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