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Center for Cellular Dynamics

Supporting research in cytoskeleton and intracellular transport, cellular changes during development and disease, cell-cell communication and interactions, and live imaging

The Center for Cellular Dynamics is a group of Penn State labs whose research is focused on the following: 

  • The cytoskeleton and intracellular transport
  • Cellular changes during development and disease
  • Cell-cell communication and interactions
  • Live imaging

The Center is a place where researchers and students share ideas and expertise, organize events that stimulate creative thinking, and strive to create a more collaborative and exciting research community.

Our members participate in departmental graduate programs, as well as interdisciplinary graduate programs organized through the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences.


News

Three Penn State researchers awarded scientific grants from Kaufman Foundation

The Charles E. Kaufman Foundation — a supporting organization of The Pittsburgh Foundation, which works to improve the quality of life in the Pittsburgh region — has selected three Penn State researchers to receive scientific research grants. The foundation awards grants to scientists at institutes of higher learning in Pennsylvania who are conducting innovative, fundamental scientific research in the fields of biology, chemistry and physics.

Genomic pioneers collaborate to access the inaccessible

A new experimental method allows researchers to dissect how certain proteins, called pioneer factors, can bind to selective regions of the genome that are inaccessible to other DNA binding proteins.

Cancer drug could treat early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, study shows

A type of drug developed for treating cancer holds promise as a new treatment for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, according to a recent study by researchers at Penn State, Stanford University and an international team of collaborators.

Rewriting the evolutionary history of critical components of the nervous system

A new study has rewritten the conventionally understood evolutionary history of certain proteins critical for electrical signaling in the nervous system. The study, led by Penn State researchers, shows that the well-studied family of proteins — potassium ion channels in the Shaker family — were present in microscopic single cell organisms well before the common ancestor of all animals.