Brooke Morriswood
Brooke Morriswood
... is a molecular cell biologist with interests in the cytoskeleton and membrane trafficking. He graduated from Cambridge University (2002) with a degree in biochemistry, and completed doctoral studies under the supervision of John Kendrick-Jones at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge (2006). He carried out postdoctoral studies in the laboratory of Graham Warren at Yale University (2007) and the Max F. Perutz Laboratories in Vienna (2008-2014). Brooke joined the Biocenter in April 2015, and ran a 100% self-funded group from 2015-2021.
Funding for the group was discontinued at the end of 2021 and Brooke is currently engaged in a career change out of academia and into science management/administration.
He is the writer of the Total Internal Reflection science blog (https://totalinternalreflectionblog.com). Twitter: @TIRscienceblog
2006: PhD, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK
2007 Postdoc: Yale University, USA
2008-2014: Postdoc, Max F. Perutz Laboratories, Vienna, Austria
2015-present: Group leader, Cell and Developmental Biology, University of Würzburg
brooke.morriswood(at)uni-wuerzburg.de
Tel ++49 93131 83556
Research synopsis
The cytoskeleton of Trypanosoma brucei is essential for its viability, and contributes to a number of cellular processes including membrane trafficking and motility.
Research in the laboratory is primarily focused around the actomyosin system of trypanosomes, and specifically their myosin motor proteins. T. brucei exhibits a dramatically reduced actomyosin complement relative to metazoan cells, making it an ideal model system for some fundamental questions in eukaryotic cell biology.
In addition, several discrete cytoskeleton-associated structures are clustered around the neck of the flagellar pocket, an invaginated subdomain of the plasma membrane which is the sole site of endo- and exocytosis in T. brucei. One of these structures is a multiprotein complex defined by the repeat-motif protein TbMORN1. The morphology, composition, and function of this complex remains a second focus of Brooke's research.
Experimental approaches involve a combination of light microscopy, fluorescence microscopy and electron microscopy, together with biochemical and functional assays. TbMORN1 was the focus of a highly-successful screen using proximity-dependent biotinylation (BioID), and this technique remains a cornerstone of the lab's work.
