Colbie R. Chinowsky was named by the Molecular Biology of the Cell (MBoC) Editorial Board as recipient of the 2021 MBoC Paper of the Year Award. As a graduate student in Matthew J. Tyska’s laboratory at Vanderbilt, Chinowsky was first author of the paper “Nonmuscle myosin-2 contractility-dependent actin turnover limits the length of epithelial microvilli” (Mol. Biol. Cell 31, 2803–2815). She is now a postdoc at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
Chinowsky studied the role of the motor protein non-muscle myosin 2C (NM2C) on the apical surface of enterocytes, the nutrient-absorbing cells in the intestine. In the small intestine, NM2C localizes to cell–cell junctions and an area known as the terminal web. Her graduate work focused on understanding the function of NM2C in the terminal web, and understanding how this sub-apical network of myosin-2 might affect intestinal morphology as a whole.
Chinowsky presented her latest research in the Minisymposium “Subcellular and Tissue-scale Approaches to Morphogenesis” at Cell Bio Virtual 2021.
The MBoC Paper of the Year is selected by the Editorial Board from among papers published in the journal each year between June and May that have a postdoc or student as the first author.
About the Author:
Mark Leader is ASCB's Director of Publications.
