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Pennsylvania Muscle Institute
Annual Retreat and Symposium 2023
“Celebrating 50 Years of Muscle, Motors, and the Cytoskeleton”
Monday, October 16, 2023
Location: BRB Gaulton Auditorium & Lobby,
Biomedical Research Building (BRB II/III),
421 Curie Blvd., 1
st
Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Sponsored by the Physiological Society of Philadelphia and
the Pennsylvania Muscle Institute
www.med.upenn.edu/pmi
Registration
8:30 – 9:00am
Registration Check-in, Poster Setup, Breakfast, Coffee
Location: BRB Gaulton Auditorium & Lobby*
*Table seating available in BRB 14
th
Floor Lounge
9:00 – 9:15am
Welcome
E. Michael Ostap, PhD
Director, Pennsylvania Muscle Institute
Professor of Physiology
University of Pennsylvania
Jonathan A. Epstein, MD
Executive Vice Dean and Chief Scientific Officer, Perelman School of
Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer, University of
Pennsylvania Health System
William Wikoff Smith Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) and Cell and
Developmental Biology
University of Pennsylvania
9:15 – 9:30am
50 Years of Progress at the PMI
E. Michael Ostap, PhD
Director, Pennsylvania Muscle Institute
Professor of Physiology
University of Pennsylvania
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9:30 – 10:15am
Andrew P. Somlyo Honorary Lecture
Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz, PhD
Senior Group Leader and Head of Janelia's 4D Cellular Physiology,
HHMI Janelia Research Campus
“How the cytoskeleton controls the structure and dynamics of the
endoplasmic reticulum”
10:15 – 10:30am
Adam Fenton (Holzbaur and Jongens Labs)
University of Pennsylvania
“FMRP-associated protein synthesis locally determines mitochondrial
organization in neurons”
10:30 – 11:00am
Coffee Break, Posters
11:00 – 11:45am
Andrew P. Somlyo Honorary Lecture
Andrew P. Carter, PhD
Investigator, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
“Cargo transport by dynein/dynactin”
11:45am – 12:15pm
Roberto Dominguez, PhD
William Maul Measey Presidential Professor of Physiology,
University of Pennsylvania
“Structural-Functional Mechanisms Controlling Actin Filament Barbed
and Pointed End Dynamics”
12:30 – 1:30pm
Lunch, Posters
Location: BRB Lobby*
*Table seating available in BRB 14
th
Floor Lounge
1:30 – 1:45pm
Xingyuan Fang (Svitkina Lab)
University of Pennsylvania
“Mechanism of branched actin assembly in microtubule- and APC-
dependent manner”
1:45 – 2:00pm
Qing Tang, PhD (Lakadamyali Lab)
University of Pennsylvania
“Insight into cytoskeleton sorting from microtubule detyrosination”
2:00 – 2:30pm
Hansell H. Stedman, MD
Professor of Surgery, University of Pennsylvania
“Gene Therapy for Inherited Muscle Disease: A Glimpse of the Summit
Ridge from Everest Base Camp”
2:30 – 3:00pm
Coffee Break, Posters
3:00 – 3:15pm
Jennifer Petrosino, PhD (Prosser Lab)
University of Pennsylvania
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Myocyte: Active transport of tRNAs
facilitates distributed protein synthesis”
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3:15 – 3:45pm
Sharlene M. Day, MD
Presidential Associate Professor of Medicine & Director, Translational
Research, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine
University of Pennsylvania
“Mechanisms of Myosin Binding Protein C Mutations in Hypertrophic
Cardiomyopathy”
3:45 – 4:00pm
Introduction: Jean and Joseph Sanger Lecture in Muscle Biology
E. Michael Ostap, PhD
4:00 – 4:45pm
Jean and Joseph Sanger Lecture in Muscle Biology
James A. Spudich, PhD
Douglass M. and Nola Leishman Professor of Cardiovascular Disease,
Stanford University
“Myosin, the exquisite nanomachine: From basic science to biotech to
medicines”
4:45 – 5:45pm
Reception, Posters
Location: BRB Lobby
5:45 – 6:00pm
Farewell, Posters Take-down
Location: BRB Lobby
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Pennsylvania Muscle Institute
Perelman School of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania
The Pennsylvania Muscle Institute (PMI) is an internationally renowned center for muscle and
motility research supported by Penn Medicine with a mission to:
• Discover the mechanisms of muscle function, muscle disease and motile biological systems
through innovative and cross-disciplinary research, and to apply these discoveries to new
therapies,
• Develop state-of-the art technologies for the study of muscle and motile systems,
• Provide education and training in muscle biology and motility to scientists, physicians, and
students.
Research is conducted by its more than 60 laboratories using biophysics, biochemistry, genetics,
physiology and ultrastructure to understand cell migration and intracellular transport, molecular
motors, cell division, muscle contraction and development, muscle pathologies and therapies targeted
to muscle disease. We are prominent in technological and methodological development for these
investigations especially in advanced light microscopy, structural spectroscopy, nanotechnology,
biochemical kinetics, image processing, molecular biology, and viral gene targeting. Extramural
grants, seminars, symposia, and journal clubs are uniquely initiated and supported by the PMI.
Additionally, the PMI sponsors vigorous graduate and post-doctoral training activities, including a
NIAMS-supported training program in “Muscle Biology and Muscle Disease.”
For questions or inquiries about PMI membership, please contact:
E. Michael Ostap, Ph.D.
Director, PMI
Professor of Physiology
Email: ostap@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Benjamin L. Prosser, Ph.D.
Associate Director, PMI
Associate Professor of Physiology
Email: bpros@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Pennsylvania Muscle Institute (PMI)
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
700A Clinical Research Building
415 Curie Blvd. Philadelphia, PA 19104
Please visit our website: http://www.med.upenn.edu/pmi/
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Guest Speaker Biographies
Andrew P. Somlyo Honorary Lectures
Andrew P. Carter, PhD
Investigator, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
Dr. Andrew Carter studied Biochemistry at Oxford University. He
obtained his PhD with Dr. Venki Ramakrishnan at the MRC Lab of
Molecular Biology (LMB), working on how antibiotics bind the
ribosome. He was part of the team which contributed to Venki’s
2009 Nobel Prize. In 2003, Dr. Carter joined the lab of Professor Ron
Vale at UCSF to investigate the structural mechanism for dynein
binding to the microtubule. He set up his own lab, in the LMB
Structural Studies division in 2010, where he and his team have used X-ray crystallography, cryo-
EM and many other approaches to understand how cytoplasmic dynein and its cofactor dynactin select
and transport cargos. Dr. Carter is a fellow of Clare College, a Wellcome Investigator, and a member
of EMBO. Dr. Carter was recently awarded the British Society of Cell Biology (BSCB) Hooke Medal
award for 2023.
Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz, PhD
Senior Group Leader and Head of Janelia's 4D Cellular
Physiology, HHMI Janelia Research Campus
Dr. Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz is a Senior Group Leader at the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus. She
has pioneered the use of green fluorescent protein technology for
quantitative analysis and modelling of intracellular protein traffic
and organelle dynamics in live cells and embryos. Her innovative
techniques to label, image, quantify and model specific live cell
protein populations and track their fate have provided vital tools used throughout the research
community. Her own findings using these techniques have reshaped thinking about the biogenesis,
function, targeting, and maintenance of various subcellular organelles and macromolecular
complexes and their crosstalk with regulators of the cell cycle, metabolism, aging, and cell fate
determination. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy
of Medicine, the American Society of Arts and Sciences and the European Molecular Biology
Organization. She is also a Fellow of The Biophysical Society, The Royal Microscopical Society and
The American Society of Cell Biology. Her awards include the E.B. Wilson Medal of the American
Society of Cell Biology, the Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, the Van Deenen Medal, the Keith Porter Award of the American Society
of Cell Biology, the Feodor Lynen Medal, and the Feulgen Prize of the Society of Histochemistry.
She co-authored of the textbook “Cell Biology” with Tom Pollard and Bill Earnshaw and was
President of the American Society of Cell Biology. Dr. Lippincott-Schwartz attended Swarthmore
College, received her MS from Stanford University, and obtained her PhD in Biochemistry from
Johns Hopkins University in 1986.
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Jean and Joseph Sanger Lecture in Muscle Biology
James A. Spudich, PhD
Douglass M. and Nola Leishman Professor of Cardiovascular
Disease, Stanford University
Dr. James Spudich, Douglass M. and Nola Leishman Professor of
Cardiovascular Disease, is in the Department of Biochemistry at
Stanford University School of Medicine. He received his B.S. in
chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1963 and his Ph.D. in
biochemistry from Stanford in 1968. He did postdoctoral work in
genetics at Stanford and in structural biology at the MRC
Laboratory in Cambridge, England. From 1971 to 1977, he was
Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics,
University of California, San Francisco. In 1977, he was appointed Professor in the Department of
Structural Biology at Stanford University. Dr. Spudich served as Chairman of the Department of
Structural Biology from 1979-1984. Since 1992 he has been Professor in the Department of
Biochemistry, where he served as Chairman from 1994-1998. From 1998 to 2002, he was Co-Founder
and first Director of the Stanford Interdisciplinary Program in Bioengineering, Biomedicine and
Biosciences called Bio-X. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the National Center for Biological
Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and InStem in Bangalore, India. Dr. Spudich is the
Founder of four biotech companies: 1998 Cytokinetics, focused on treatments for diseases
characterized by compromised muscle function like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and heart failure,
with several small molecule modulators in late stage clinical trials; 2012 MyoKardia, focused on
developing targeted therapies for the treatment of rare genetically-based cardiovascular diseases such
as hypertrophic and dilated cardiomyopathy, resulting in a $13.1B buyout by Bristol Myers Squibb
and an FDA approved drug Camzyos (mavacamten); 2019 Kainomyx, focused on targeting
cytoskeletal components of Plasmodium parasites for treatment of malaria; 2022 Cyntegron
Therapeutics, focused on targeting cytoskeletal components for the treatment of cancers.
Dr. Spudich has given more than 50 named lectureships and keynote addresses, and has received
many honors, including election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1991, and recipient of the
Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award in 2012.
Over the last five decades, the Spudich laboratory studied the structure and function of the myosin
family of molecular motors in vitro and in vivo, and they developed multiple new tools, including in
vitro motility assays taken to the single molecule level using laser traps. That work led them to their
current focus at Stanford on the human cardiac sarcomere and the molecular basis of hypertrophic
and dilated cardiomyopathy. Spudich postulated in 2015 that a majority of hypertrophic
cardiomyopathy mutations are likely to be shifting beta-cardiac myosin heads from a sequestered off-
state to an active on-state for interaction with actin, resulting in the hyper-contractility seen clinically
in HCM patients. This unifying hypothesis is different from earlier prevailing views, and this viewing
an old disease in a new light has become the favored view in the field of the molecular basis of
hypercontractility caused by HCM mutations. While maintaining his lab at Stanford, Spudich serves
as CEO and President of both Kainomyx and Cyntegron Therapeutics.
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Andrew P. Somlyo Honorary Lectures
Andrew P. Somlyo, M.D.
(1930 – 2004)
Professor of Physiology and Pathology and founding Director of
the Pennsylvania Muscle Institute, Dr. Somlyo was a luminary in
the field of smooth muscle physiology. His research (in
collaboration with Dr. Avril Somlyo) played a key role in showing
that actin-myosin interactions are responsible for force generation
in smooth muscle. With colleagues at the University of
Pennsylvania, Dr. Somlyo developed electron probe microanalysis
to determine local ion concentrations in tissues at nanometer resolution. Additionally, his pioneering
work in signaling revealed the mechanisms that regulate contraction of smooth muscle independently
of the membrane potential – a process he termed pharmacomechanical coupling. Dr. Somlyo had a
passion for science that is evident in the remarkable imprint that he left on the field of muscle
physiology and on his students and colleagues. He was also a noted collector of Asian art. Dr. Somlyo
left Penn Medicine in 1988 to chair the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics
at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.
Jean and Joseph Sanger Lecture in Muscle Biology
Jean M. Sanger, PhD
Professor, Department of Cell and
Developmental Biology
SUNY Upstate Medical University
Joseph W. Sanger, PhD
Professor, Department of Cell and
Developmental Biology
SUNY Upstate Medical University
Drs. Jean and Joseph Sanger are pioneers in the development and use of fluorescently labeled proteins
to examine the architecture and dynamics of a range of biological processes in developing and mature
cells. As former members of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, they were founding
members of the Pennsylvania Muscle Institute. The Sangers were among the first cell biologists to
take advantage of probes to follow the assembly and changing localizations of cytoskeletal
components in living cells. Their research led to impactful new discoveries about cell division, actin
based bacterial infections, and assembly and maintenance of myofibrils in muscle cells. Importantly,
the Sangers were the first scientists to visualize and quantify the kinetics of sarcomeric proteins
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entering newly developing and mature myofibrils. In real time, they followed key components of the
contractile machinery during myofibrillogenesis. The revolutionary models they formulated for how
Z-bands, thick and thin filaments, and other sarcomeric components are templated during
development are still the standards in the field. More recently, the Sangers were the first to determine
the role of the ubiquitin–proteasome system in the progression of nascent myofibrils to maturity, and
possible mechanisms for the off-target effects on hearts by chemotherapeutics. In addition to their
scientific achievements, the Sangers have been leaders and role models in the Cell Biology
community as educators, mentors to trainees and faculty, editors, reviewers, conference organizers,
and administrators. Dr. Joseph Sanger served as interim chair of PSOM’s Department of Cell and
Developmental Biology. The Sangers left Penn in 2006 for SUNY Upstate Medical University, where
Dr. Jean Sanger became Professor and Dr. Joseph Sanger became Professor and Chair of Cell and
Developmental Biology. They were and are parts of the soul of the Pennsylvania Muscle Institute.
