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Barnard
Ecology Professor Jeanne Poindexter, Founder of a Field
of Research, Delivers Keynote Address at Canadian Microbiology
Conference, July 9
Contact:
Petra Tuomi, Office of Public Affairs, 212-854-7907
James Griffith, Office of Public Affairs, 212-854-2037
New York, NY, July 31, 2002—In the December 22, 1962,
issue of Nature, Barnard ecology professor and Chair
of the Biological Sciences Department, Jeanne Poindexter,
then a Ph.D student at Berkeley named Jeanne Stove, and
her co-author, R.Y. Stanier, published the groundbreaking
paper, "Cellular Differentiation in Stalked Bacteria."
Their research demonstrated the highly unusual cell cycle
of Caulobacter crescentus bacteria, giving birth
to an entire field of developmental research. There are
now around 20 laboratories worldwide dedicated to the study
of Caulobacter’s development.
Caulobacter divides asymmetrically, with one half
of the original cell developing a flagellum, a wavy "tail"
attached to the cell, and the second half developing a straight
"tail," or a stalk (caulis is Latin for
"stalk"). As the two cells develop, the stalk
cell renews the division process immediately, while the
cell with the flagellum goes through a second stage of developing
a stalk before dividing again. Poindexter’s research
showed that Caulobacter has a legitimate juvenile
stage in its development, an extreme rarity in single-cell
organisms.
On Tuesday, July 9, 2002, Poindexter delivered the keynote
address at the inaugural Caulobacter Meeting in Manoir
du Lac Delage in Québec. The meeting ran from July
8-10, just before the American Society for Microbiology
Conference on Prokaryotic Development in Québec City,
which lasted from July 10-14. The Caulobacter Meeting,
along with others like it, was designed as a specialized
breakout meeting for those whose research focuses on that
particular bacterium.
In her keynote address, titled, "Variations on a life
style: C. crescentus and beyond," Poindexter
discussed other bacteria that are probably regulated in
their cell cycles in much the same way and that probably
share many of the same genes. It was also an overview of
related bacteria and their development. 15 of the world’s
Caulobacter laboratories were represented.
"The most satisfying thing for me," said Poindexter,
"was seeing how my Ph.D dissertation had unfolded."
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