Lynne Quarmby
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lynne Quarmby | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Lynne Quarmby, in 2013 | |
| Personal details | |
| Party | Green Party of Canada |
| Profession | Scientist, activist, politician. |
Lynne Quarmby is a Canadian scientist, activist, and politician. She is a professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry[1] at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. She was a candidate for the Green Party of Canada in Burnaby North—Seymour in the 2015 federal election,[2] and is the Green Party of Canada's Science Policy Critic.[3]
Quarmby completed a BSc in Marine Biology and a MSc in Biological Oceanography at the University of British Columbia before moving to the University of Connecticut to complete her PhD in Biochemistry.[1] She worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Nobel laureate Alfred Gilman at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Austin, TX, then in the lab of Criss Hartzell at Emory University in Atlanta, GA, where she also held her first faculty position.[4] She moved her lab to Simon Fraser University in 2000.
Quarmby's research has been aimed at understanding the signals and mechanisms of deflagellation, the process by which cells shed their cilia into the environment.[5] Cilia are found on most eukaryotic cells and on most cells in the human body, and defects in a cell's ability to form or maintain its cilia can cause diseases known as ciliopathies, that may include symptoms such as cystic kidney disease, blindness, and obesity.[6] Through her research using the single-celled ciliated green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii as a model organism, Quarmby identified members of the NIMA-related family of serine/threonine kinases that function in deflagellation[7][8] as well as in the assembly and maintenance of cilia.[9][10] Her group went on to show that NEK8 localizes to cilia,[11] and that mutations in NEK8 interfere with its ciliary localization[12] and cause a severe juvenile cystic kidney disease known as nephronophthisis,[13] underscoring the important link between cilia and cystic kidney disease.
Quarmby's work has been funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), and the Kidney Foundation of Canada (KFoC).[14][15][16] In 2011 NSERC recognized Quarmby's research program by awarding her a Discovery Accelerator Supplement, a funding program reserved for researchers who show strong potential to become international leaders within their field.[17]
Quarmby is known for outstanding undergraduate teaching, and received a SFU Teaching Excellence Award in 2011.[18]
Quarmby was the co-recipient of the 2015 Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy.[19]
