News
James Tolbert Shipley Prize
Congratulations to Jacob on winning the 2025 James Tolbert Shipley Prize, which recognizes excellent research carried out by a graduating medical student at HMS. Jacob was recognized for his work on mammalian doublet microtubules.
Cilia housekeeping
Sven's paper, which identifies how ubiquitinated proteins are retrieved from cilia, is now online as a preprint.
Marija Simjanoska rotates
Marija joins the lab for a rotation project, where she will be working alongside Haixia.
Jeremy Bennett joins
We welcome Jeremy to the lab for his thesis project. Jeremy plans to study ciliary quality control mechanisms.
Leishmania DMTs
The insides of motile cilia and flagella microtubules are coated in proteins - but are they all important for motility? Our latest study in Science addresses this question using trypanosomatids as model organisms.
Sloan Fellowship for Travis
Congratulations to former postdoc Travis Walton on being named a 2025 Sloan Research Fellow.
Jin departs to become PI
A bittersweet day for the Brown lab, as Jin Dai departs to start his own research group in Suzhou, China. We wish him all the best as he continues his studies of Chlamydomonas flagella.
First paper of the new year
Our paper on structures of axonemes from different mammalian tissues is now online at Nature! This was another great collaboration with Rui Zhang and Tzviya Zeev-Ben-Mordehai. Highlights include structures of radial spoke 3 and identification of a sperm-specific axoneme-tethered TRiC chaperone. Jacob Anderson contributed the cryo-EM structure of a human fallopian doublet microtubule and our first foray into cryo-ET with a subtomogram average of the porcine fallopian doublet microtubule.
Postdoc position available
The Brown lab is seeking a highly motivated postdoctoral fellow to join our team. The successful candidate will study cilia-related mechanisms, with the specific project tailored to the candidate’s expertise and training needs. Projects generally fall into two areas: (1) elucidating fundamental mechanisms of ciliary motility and (2) understanding the establishment and regulation of ciliary signaling pathways.
Tierra Buck joins
The lab is delighted to welcome Tierra Buck, who joins for her PhD thesis project. Tierra will be studying different aspects of intraflagellar transport.
Ammaar and Jean rotate
The lab welcomes two exceptional rotation students - Ammaar Saeed and Jean Beltram - to the lab.
NSF funding
We thank the NSF for funding our work with Eva Gluenz on understanding how axonemes allow parasites to move.
Goodbye Raymond
Today we say an emotional goodbye to Raymond, who has spent the last 3 years in the lab learning molecular biology and biochemistry. We wish him the best of luck as he pursues his dream of becoming a doctor.
Asst. Prof. Travis Walton!
Congratulations to Travis Walton who has accepted a tenure-track position at the Van Andel Institute. We wish him all the best as he sets up his own lab to study neuronal microtubules.
TUBB4B ciliopathies
Our contribution to a study linking tubulin mutations to ciliopathic syndromes is published in Science.
Mastigoneme structure
Jin's work on the mastigoneme was published in Cell. Another fantastic collaboration with Rui Zhang, Susan Dutcher and Karl Lechtreck.
Cryo-EM of ciliary microtubules
Travis and Matt's review on how cryo-EM can be used to resolve structures of ciliary microtubules has been published as the cover article for Acta Cryst D.
Welcome Nikita Kupko
Nikita joins the lab as a rotation student to work on cryo-ET processing.
New Funding
The lab would like to thank the Smith Family Foundation for their continued support of our research. Thank you!
New rotation students
The lab is delighted to be hosting three new rotation students - Serena Harden, Peter Ren, and Jeremy Bennett, who will be working on various cilia-related projects.
Johanna Höög sabbatical
Following our successful collaboration on SPACA9, Johanna Höög (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) will be joining the lab as a sabbatical visitor to learn single-particle analysis cryo-EM. We look forward to hosting you for the next 6 months!
Successful thesis defense!
Congratulations to Jacob who successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis. Jacob now returns to medical school to finish his M.D., and will be greatly missed in the lab.
Congratulations Sven
Sven was awarded a Sara Elizabeth O'Brien Trust Postdoctoral Fellowship!
Congratulations Matt
Congratulations to Matt on being awarded the 2023 Merck Company Foundation Fellowship.
Sperm doublets
Two papers in Cell demonstrate the complexity of sperm doublet microtubules, including the first corresponding author paper from our previous postdoc Miao Gui.
Atomic models of Axonemes
Travis and Miao's structures of axonemes are now online at Nature. This was a heroic multi-year effort enhanced by our wonderful collaborators Tom Burgoyne and Hannah Mitchison. The work is summarized in a Research Briefing.
Automated model building
We're happy to contribute to the development of ModelAngelo - a transformative tool for automated model building and the identification of proteins in cryo-EM maps. Read the preprint here.
Welcome Luochen Liu
The lab is delighted to welcome Luochen Liu for a Ph.D. rotation project. Luochen will be working on IFT and hopes to learn cryo-EM processing.
Promotion
Thanks to the hard work of members of the Brown lab, past and present, Alan has been promoted to Associate Professor
Miao's last day :(
Today we said an emotional goodbye to the irreplaceable Miao Gui. Miao leaves to start his own lab in China (more details to follow). We wish him the best of luck and look forward to the amazing science that his team will produce in the future.
SPACA9 - a promiscuous MIP?
Our latest work on human ciliary microtubules has been published in PNAS. We determined cryoEM structures of human respiratory doublet microtubules isolated from 2D organoids, and the singlet microtubules of the sperm endpiece revealing the presence of SPACA9 in both. This was a wonderful international collaboration with Tom Burgoyne (UCL, England) and Johanna Höög (University of Gothenburg, Sweden).
Welcome Sven
Today the lab welcomes Sven Lange to the team. Sven joins from the MRC PPU in Dundee where he worked with Yogesh Kulathu on ubiquitin signaling.
Textbook cover
Awesome to see our model of the Chlamy doublet microtubule on the cover of the Chlamydomonas sourcebook
Matt Doran starts
The lab is delighted to welcome Matt Doran as a new postdoc. Matt joins from the Boston University School of Medicine, where he studied the mechanisms of cardiac muscle contraction and the structural causes of muscle disorders such as cardiomyopathies.
VWF tubules
Congratulations to Jacob on the publication of his paper describing how VWF tubules form. This was a wonderful collaboration with Jing Li and Tim Springer.
Welcome to Nick Shaw
Today we welcome Nick Shaw to the lab for a 10-week summer placement. Nick is an undergraduate from the University of Cincinnati and is participating in the BCMP Summer Scholars program.
Fellowship success for Jin
Congratulations to Jin who has been awarded a BCMP Christopher Walsh Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Summer fellowship for Raymond
We're looking forward to having Raymond in the lab more often over the summer thanks to a Harvard College Research Program Fellowship.
Miao promoted
Congratulations to Miao on his promotion to Instructor
F30 Award
Congratulations Jacob on being awarded an F30 training grant from the NIH/NHLBI!
Goodbye Sandeep
Today was Sandeep's last day. He was the first postdoc to join the lab, so his leaving marks the end of an era. He goes on to join St. Jude's as a Staff Scientist. We wish him the best of luck!
Highlight
Thanks to NSMB for highlighting our work on mammalian doublet microtubules.
New paper!
Haixia's paper on the structure of CRL2Lrr1, an E3 ubiquitin ligase required for the termination of replication in eukaryotes is now online. This was a wonderful collaboration with Manal Zaher from Johannes Walter's lab.
Miao named BCMP's outstanding postdoc
Congratulations to Miao who was named our department's outstanding postdoc for 2021!
New paper!
Congratulations to Miao, Jacob, Josie, Shimi, and Sandeep for their contributions to our new paper in Cell.
Grinnell Funding
The lab thanks the Charles E.W. Grinnell Trust for Medical Research for funding our research.