Christopher Brownlee, PhD

My prior experience during my graduate and postdoctoral careers has given me a broad background in molecular, cell, genetic, and biochemical biology utilizing both the powerful Drosophila and Xenopus systems as well as traditional cell culture. I have a strong track record in obtaining personal funding in both my graduate work (NSF Fellowship) and postdoctoral work (American Cancer Society Fellowship). With the support of my graduate funding I discovered how the cell limits centriole duplication to only one event per cell cycle to prevent centriole amplification and aneuploidy, a potent driver of oncogenesis, and how a tumorigenic virus subverts this pathway to promote centriole amplification (Brownlee et al., 2011). With the support of my postdoctoral fellowship I was able to develop and build upon several techniques using Xenopus cytoplasmic extract and microfluidics to elucidate a sensor of cell size to regulate mitotic spindle and nuclear size scaling. Importantly, size scaling of these organelles has been shown to be deregulated in several cancers and in the same publication I also show that this novel pathway is conserved in human cells (Brownlee and Heald, 2019). These findings have not only resulted in my being a recipient of the 2018 UC Berkeley Outstanding Postdoctoral Research Award, but also opened the possibility for several new exciting avenues of future research. Current research aims to dissect the roles of importin alpha plasma membrane partitioning in processes including primary ciliogenesis, mitotic spindle positioning, neuronal and oligodendrocyte morphogenesis, epithelial apical/basal polarity, and breast cancer metastasis. We leverage the power of the Xenopus extract and embryo system as well as cell culture, mouse metastasis models, and microfluidics to accomplish these aims.

Assistant Professor
440 Centers for Molecular Medicine
631-632-1593
Christopher.Brownlee@stonybrook.edu
Pharmacological Sciences Faculty Page