Melina Schuh

Melina Schuh is a German molecular biologist. She is known for her work on meiosis in human egg cells, and for her studies on the mechanisms that lead to Down syndrome.[1]

Melina Schuh
Born
Germany
Alma materEMBL Heidelberg, University of Bayreuth
AwardsEMBO Gold Medal

Early life and education

Schuh was born in 1980 in Germany and grew up in Bad Pyrmont.[2] She received a diploma degree in biochemistry from the University of Bayreuth, Germany. She went on to do her PhD with Jan Ellenberg at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, where she used live cell imaging to study the organization of the spindle in mouse oocytes.[2][3][4]

Career

In 2009, Schuh became a group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK.[5] Her work centers around the process of asymmetric oocyte division, in which oocytes mature into eggs by extruding half of their chromosomes in a small cell termed the polar body.[6][7] This requires the spindle apparatus in these cells to be asymmetric. She discovered a role for proteins that control actin nucleation in the positioning of the spindle.[8] In studying how actin helps position the spindle, she discovered that vesicles carrying specific signals can change the organization and density of actin networks.[9]

Errors in oocyte division can lead to genetic disorders such as Down syndrome. Working with Bourn Hall Clinic, the clinic that first pioneered IVF, Schuh studied human oocyte divisions directly, instead of using mouse oocytes as a model system. She found that human oocytes have a surprisingly slow and error-prone mechanism for assembling the meiotic spindle,[10] increasing the likelihood of segregation errors. She has also investigated the reasons why the children of older mothers have a higher rate of pregnancy loss and Down syndrome, finding that oocytes from older mothers have a higher frequency of errors in pairing between sister chromatids.[11] Schuh has shown that actin filaments normally protect mammalian eggs against this type of error.[12]

Awards

References
  1. "EMBO Gold Medal 2018 awarded to Marek Basler and Melina Schuh". Embo.org.
  2. Sedwick, Caitlin (2014-03-31). "Melina Schuh: First comes the egg". J Cell Biol. 204 (7): 1080–1081. doi:10.1083/jcb.2047pi. ISSN 0021-9525. PMC 3971742. PMID 24687276.
  3. Schuh, Melina; Ellenberg, Jan (2007-08-10). "Self-organization of MTOCs replaces centrosome function during acentrosomal spindle assembly in live mouse oocytes". Cell. 130 (3): 484–498. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2007.06.025. ISSN 0092-8674. PMID 17693257.
  4. Schuh, Melina; Ellenberg, Jan (2008-12-23). "A new model for asymmetric spindle positioning in mouse oocytes". Current Biology. 18 (24): 1986–1992. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2008.11.022. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-002A-2372-5. ISSN 1879-0445. PMID 19062278.
  5. "Melina Schuh : CV" (PDF). Mpibpc.mpg.de. August 2018. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
  6. Journal of Cell Science (2016). "Cell scientist to watch – Melina Schuh". Journal of Cell Science. 129: 7–8. doi:10.1242/jcs.182717.
  7. "Dr. Melina Schuh". Academia-net.org.
  8. Pfender, Sybille; Kuznetsov, Vitaliy; Pleiser, Sandra; Kerkhoff, Eugen; Schuh, Melina (2011-06-07). "Spire-type actin nucleators cooperate with Formin-2 to drive asymmetric oocyte division". Current Biology. 21 (11): 955–960. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2011.04.029. ISSN 1879-0445. PMC 3128265. PMID 21620703.
  9. Holubcová, Zuzana; Howard, Gillian; Schuh, Melina (2013). "Vesicles modulate an actin network for asymmetric spindle positioning". Nature Cell Biology. 15 (8): 937–947. doi:10.1038/ncb2802. ISSN 1476-4679. PMC 3797517. PMID 23873150.
  10. Holubcova, Z.; Blayney, M.; Elder, K.; Schuh, M. (2015-06-05). "Error-prone chromosome-mediated spindle assembly favors chromosome segregation defects in human oocytes". Science. 348 (6239): 1143–1147. doi:10.1126/science.aaa9529. ISSN 0036-8075. PMC 4477045. PMID 26045437.
  11. Zielinska, Agata P.; Holubcova, Zuzana; Blayney, Martyn; Elder, Kay; Schuh, Melina (2015-12-15). "Sister kinetochore splitting and precocious disintegration of bivalents could explain the maternal age effect". eLife. 4: e11389. doi:10.7554/eLife.11389. ISSN 2050-084X. PMC 4755749. PMID 26670547.
  12. Mogessie, Binyam; Schuh, Melina (2017). "Actin protects mammalian eggs against chromosome segregation errors". Science. 357 (6353): eaal1647. doi:10.1126/science.aal1647. ISSN 1095-9203. PMID 28839045.
  13. "22 young group leaders recognized as EMBO Young Investigators". Embo.org.
  14. "ERC grantee wins EMBO gold medal". Erc.europa.eu. 2018-05-16.
  15. "Melina Schuh and M. Madan Babu awarded Lister Research Prizes". MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. 2014-09-03.
  16. "Past winners of an Early Career Research Award". Biochemistry.org.
  17. "List of winners". Embl.de.
  18. "EMBO Gold Medal 2018 awarded to Marek Basler and Melina Schuh". Embl.de.
  19. "2019 Winners". Biochemistry.org. Retrieved 2019-02-08.
  20. "DFG, German Research Foundation - Dr. Melina Schuh". www.dfg.de. Retrieved 2019-03-15.
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