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Observing the cell
Sophie Martin is a biologist, born in Switzerland
in 1971.
She always felt fascinated by the way in
which biological processes are organized
spatially within cells.
Her work attempts to shed light on the molecular events that define the organization and
development of the cell. She has been working
for over fifteen years to understand cellular polarity, in particular the way in which the spatial
organization of cells influences their size and
division. The model organism she uses for her
investigations is the yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, a single-celled eukaryote fungus
that grows to acquires the shape of a bar.
In 2009, Sophie discovered that a kinase
enzyme, called Pom1, regulates the progression throughout the cell cycle and forms concentration gradients that originate at each end
of the cell. Martin proposed a model that explained how the gradients of Pom1 give spatial
information that prevents these yeasts from
dividing until they have reached a sufficient
size. Her work managed to renew interest in the mechanisms that regulate
cell size.
Sophie is Professeure Associée at the Department of Fundamental Microbiology of the
University of Lausanne.
She has received the European Research
Council Award and the EMBO gold medal.