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Thomas Melia, PhD

Professor of Cell Biology
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About

Titles

Professor of Cell Biology

Appointments

Education & Training

PhD
Baylor College of Medicine (1999)
BS
Carnegie Mellon Univ (1992)

Research

Overview

Faced with persistent starvation, the cell can “consume itself”. Macroautophagy is a pathway for the sequestration and ultimate delivery of cytosol to the lysosome for degradation and release of valuable nutrients. Interestingly, the same pathway can be highjacked to selectively dispose of cytosolic toxins ranging from protein inclusions to dying organelles, and thus macroautophagy has been linked to a range of diseases (neurodegeneration, heart disease, cancer, viral infection, etc.). However, despite this widespread translational interest, fundamental questions remain unanswered.

We are studying how the cell forms, de novo, a new organelle (the autophagosome) to sequester free cytosol. In particular, we are interested in what membranes are harvested for this purpose, how the autophagosome grows, how cargo is targeted to these membranes and how the cell carries out potentially complex membrane dynamics and intracellular fusion to effect the formation of the unique double-membrane structure of the autophagosome. Ultimately we expect that protein function and membrane architecture will be revealed by combining low resolution cell-based assays with high resolution imaging (electron cryo-microscopy) of both isolated organelles and reconstituted autophagosome mimetics, vesicles imbued with all the detail we currently possess about autophagosome proteomic character.

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)

Autophagy; Cell Biology; Lysosomes; Phagosomes; Protein Aggregates

Research at a Glance

Yale Co-Authors

Frequent collaborators of Thomas Melia's published research.

Publications

2024

2023

2022

2021

2019

Get In Touch

Contacts

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Mailing Address

Cell Biology

PO Box 208002, 333 Cedar Street

New Haven, CT 06520-8002

United States

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