Affiliation: Yale University

Dr. Wasim Sayyad is an Associate Research Scientist at the Yale University. He obtained his PhD in Neuroscience from the International School for Advanced Studies, Trieste Italy where he studied force generation mechanism in developing neurons by using optical tweezers. Dr. Wasim found that lamellipodia, a sheet-like structure at the end of neuronal growth cone exerts a larger force (20 pN) than a finger-like filopodium (3 pN) and myosin II controls the structural stability of growth cone. He then joined the lab of Prof. Thomas Pollard where his research focused on elucidating the mechanisms of endocytosis and cytokinesis using fission yeast as a very favorable model organism. Using a combination of genetics, quantitative confocal microscopy, and high-speed super-resolution fluorescence photoactivation localization microscopy (FPLAM) in live cells, he found that the assembly of two zones of actin filaments, each smaller than the diffraction limit of light, drives the formation of tubular invaginations of the plasma membrane and push each other to pinch the plasma membrane to form an endocytic vesicle. Recently, he used Airyscan microscopy to show that the number of cytokinesis nodes scales with cell size. These assemblies of proteins are membrane-less organelles (MLOs) attached to the plasma membrane around a nucleus, which serve as precursors for the contractile ring, which divides cells in two at the end of mitosis.

Dr. Wasim’s long-term research goal is to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying cellular processes involved in cell morphology and proliferation in enough detail to cure the related diseases caused due to defects in them.