Daniel Lew

About

Daniel Lew is a professor of biology at MIT who uses fungal model systems to investigate how cells orient their activities in space. His research focuses on understanding how different cell shapes arise and how cells control the spatial distribution of their internal constituents, which is critical for performing specialized functions such as nutrient absorption and muscle contraction. Lew employs approaches from cell biology, genetics, and computational biology to elucidate molecular mechanisms underlying these processes. His work contributes to a deeper understanding of cell orientation, polarization, and organelle segregation, with implications for cell function and development.

Research topics

• Biology
• Cell biology
• Genetics
• Biophysics
• Chemistry

Selected publications

• Orientation of Cell Polarity by Chemical Gradients

  Annual Review of Biophysics · 2022-02-07 · 39 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior author

  Accurate decoding of spatial chemical landscapes is critical for many cell functions. Eukaryotic cells decode local chemical gradients to orient growth or movement in productive directions. Recent work on yeast model systems, whose gradient sensing pathways display much less complexity than those in animal cells, has suggested new paradigms for how these very small cells successfully exploit information in noisy and dynamic pheromone gradients to identify their mates. Pheromone receptors regulat…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Mechanistic insights into actin-driven polarity site movement in yeast

  Molecular Biology of the Cell · 2020-05-01 · 29 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  , relocates its polarity site when searching for mating partners. Relocation requires polymerized actin, and is thought to involve actin-mediated vesicle traffic to the polarity site. In this study, we provide a quantitative characterization of spontaneous polarity site movement as a search process and use a mechanistic computational model that combines polarity protein biochemical interactions with vesicle trafficking to probe how various processes might affect polarity site movement. Our findi…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Chemical transformation of the multibudding yeast, <i>Aureobasidium pullulans</i>

  The Journal of Cell Biology · 2024-06-27 · 15 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Aureobasidium pullulans is a ubiquitous polymorphic black yeast with industrial and agricultural applications. It has recently gained attention amongst cell biologists for its unconventional mode of proliferation in which multinucleate yeast cells make multiple buds within a single cell cycle. Here, we combine a chemical transformation method with genome-targeted homologous recombination to yield ∼60 transformants/μg of DNA in just 3 days. This protocol is simple, inexpensive, and requires no sp…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Optimized vectors for genetic engineering of <i>Aureobasidium pullulans</i>

  Molecular Biology of the Cell · 2025-04-09 · 8 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Aureobasidium pullulans is a polyextremotolerant black yeast that exhibits impressive morphological plasticity. Consequently, it shows promise as a model system for investigating mechanisms of cell adaptation to different environments and the regulation of cell shape. Here, we build upon the current toolkit for working with A. pullulans and design and test 25 vectors with seven different codon-optimized fluorophores and three selection cassettes. This includes vectors that allow for dual express…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Particle-based simulations reveal two positive feedback loops allow relocation and stabilization of the polarity site during yeast mating

  PLoS Computational Biology · 2023-10-02 · 7 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Many cells adjust the direction of polarized growth or migration in response to external directional cues. The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae orient their cell fronts (also called polarity sites) up pheromone gradients in the course of mating. However, the initial polarity site is often not oriented towards the eventual mating partner, and cells relocate the polarity site in an indecisive manner before developing a stable orientation. During this reorientation phase, the polarity site displays e…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Studies on cell polarity, chemotropism, and cell cycle control

  NIH · $6.1M · 2017–2027

• NIH Grant R01GM079271

  NIH · $4.0M · 2019

• NIH Grant R01GM053050

  NIH · $5.1M · 2013

Frequent coauthors

• Trevin R. Zyla

  Duke University

  94 shared

• Elaine S.G. Bardes

  Duke Medical Center

  42 shared

• John N. McMillan

  32 shared

• Amy S. Gladfelter

  Duke University

  31 shared

• Timothy C. Elston

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  30 shared

• Audrey S. Howell

  Howard Hughes Medical Institute

  29 shared

• Steven I. Reed

  28 shared

• Chandra L. Theesfeld

  Princeton University

  26 shared

Labs

• Daniel Lew LabPI

Education

• PhD

  Rockefeller University

  1990

Awards & honors

• Fellow, American Academy of Microbiology (2008)
• Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science…
• Duke Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Award (2019)

Similar researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Rudolf Jaenischh-295
• Robert A. Weinbergh-291
• Susumu Tonegawah-237