Rebecca Health is the Flora Lamson Hewlett Chair in Biochemistry and a professor of Cell Biology, Development and Physiology. The scientific goal of the Heald Lab is to leverage amphibian systems to elucidate molecular mechanisms of cell division and size control, as well as the contribution of genome size and content to organism physiology. Unique and interdisciplinary approaches take advantage of cytoplasmic extracts prepared from eggs of the frog Xenopus laevis that reconstitute mitotic chromosome condensation and spindle assembly and function in vitro. To study mechanisms of spindle and organelle size control, a smaller, related frog, Xenopus tropicalis, has been used to investigate interspecies scaling, and extracts prepared from fertilized eggs at different stages of embryogenesis to study developmental scaling. This research has provided novel insight into cell division and morphogenesis, processes essential for viability and development, and defective in human diseases such as cancer.

Coral Zhou (postdoc) - Assistant Professor, University of Kansas

Guadalupe Sepulveda (graduate student) - Staff Scientist, Stanford 

Clotilde Cadart (postdoc) - Junior Group leader - Institut Cochin

Kelly Miller (graduate student) - BioRad

Maiko Kitaoka (graduate student) - Postdoc, MIT 

Mina Sun (postdoc) - Google

Ambika Nadkrni (postdoc) - Postdoc, Stanford University 

Stephanie Malinich (lab manager) - On-call biologist, Sequoia Ecological Consulting 

Christopher Brownlee (postdoc) - Assistant Professor, Stony Brook University 

Xiao Zhou (postdoc) - Scientific Programmer, Caribou Bioscience 

Romain Gibeaux (postdoc) - CNRS researcher, Institute of Genetics and Development of Rennes 

Rachael Acker (undergraduate) - Medical student, Harvard 

Andy Lane (postdoc) - Computational Biologist, Mammoth Diagnostics 

Lauren Slevin (postdoc) - Prenatal Genetic Counselor, Swedish Medical Center Maternal and Fetal Specialty Center, Seattle 

Andrew Grenfell (graduate student), Instructor and Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Minnesota 

Magdalena Strzelecka (postdoc) - Data Scientist, One Logic 

Marina Ellefson Crowder (postdoc) - Assistant Teaching Professor, UC Davis 

Sharon Guo (undergraduate) - Graduate Student, UC Santa Barbara 

Matt Good (postdoc) - Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania 

Kara Helmke Rogers (graduate student) - Director, Freshman Research Initiative, UT Austin 

Jeremy Wilbur (postdoc) - Protein and Cellular Biophysicist, Relay Therapeutics 

Evan Whitehead (undergraduate) - Research Assistant, Google-X 

Anne-Lore Schlaitz (postdoc) - Group Leader, University of Heidelberg 

Stephen Bird (graduate student) - Field Applications Scientist, Thermo-Fisher 

Esther Kieserman (postdoc) - Biological Sales Specialist, Nikon 

Blake Riggs (postdoc) - Associate Professor, San Francisco State University 

Daniel Levy (postdoc) - Associate Professor, University of Wyoming 

David Halpin (postdoc) - Paramedic fireman, San Francisco 

Jay Wang (undergraduate) - Opthamologist, Massachusets General Hospital 

Kieren Patel (graduate student) - CEO, Opticent Health 

Jonathan Soderholm (postdoc) - Associate Professor, Yonsei University 

Rose Loughlin (graduate student) - Senior Director, Moderna 

Benjamin Freedman (graduate student) - Assistant Professor, University of Washington 

Petr Kalab (postdoc) - Associate Research Professor, Johns Hopkins 

Eva Hannak (postdoc) - Patent Agent, Morrison [&] Foerster 

Michael Blower (postdoc) - Associate Professor, Mass General Hospital/Harvard 

Aaron Van Hooser (postdoc) - Director of Data Science, Korro Bio 

Tom Maresca (graduate student) - Associate Professor, UMASS Amherst 

Renée Deehan (graduate student) - VP of Computational Biology, QuartzBio 

Sharat Gadde (graduate student) - High School Teacher, Miramonte High School 

Priya Prakash Budde (graduate student) - Senior Foundation and Corporate Relations Officer, Whitehead Institute 

Sadie Wignall (graduate student) - Associate Professor, Northwestern University 

Ahna Skop (postdoc) - Professor, University of Wisconsin Madison