Background and Training

Grant is originally from the true suburbs: Thousand Oaks, California. He left the West Coast to perform his undergraduate work at Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in biology. He developed his passion from microbiology by studying viruses and bacteria in the labs of Dr. Stephen Goff and Dr. Jonathan Dworkin. Additionally, he began to appreciate the power of evolutionary thinking during his field semester study abroad experience in Kenya.

After college, he returned to California to perform his doctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley. He came to appreciate how microbial eukaryotes could be used to gain basic biological insights by rotating in the labs of Dr. Jasper Rine and Dr. Nicole King.^1-2 He ultimately joined Dr. Elçin Ünal’s lab to study nuclear remodeling during budding yeast meiosis. Using classical genetics and live-cell microscopy, he identified a novel nuclear quality control event that facilitates cellular rejuvenation, in which age-induced damage is eliminated from developing gametes.^3-5 He further discovered and mechanistically characterized two meiotic nuclear pore complex modularity events, advancing understanding of the enigmatic nuclear basket.⁶ Together, this work provided new insights into the diverse strategies by which nuclei are reorganized to facilitate success of the next generation.

Research Interests

In Dr. Harmit Malik’s lab, Grant is continuing to pursue his love of yeast. He is currently developing functional genomics techniques to identify host factors that regulate 2-micron plasmids, a model extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA) native to budding yeast. He will then use his yeast cell biological and genetic skillsets to characterize these genes. He hopes that this model will facilitate understanding of how eukaryotic host cells interact with ecDNA more generally, as it has recently become appreciated that ecDNA is linked to cancer progression and evolution. During his time in the lab, he further plans to develop a phylogenomic skill set in order to delve into future weird and wacky eukaryotic evolutionary cell biology questions.

Other Interests

Outside of lab, Grant enjoys doing the crossword, reading books of all genres, and eating baked goods. He also enjoys hiking to see animals in their native environment. His favorite animals - besides his family dogs - are hyraxes (look them up!!), the unassuming closest relatives of elephants and manatees.

Publications

[6] King, G.A.*, Wettstein, R.*, Varberg, J., Chetlapalli, K., Walsh, M., Gillet, L., Hernández-Armenta, C., Beltrao, P., Aebersold, R., Jaspersen, S., Matos, J., Ünal, E. (2023). Meiotic Nuclear Pore Complex Remodeling Provides Key Insights into Nuclear Basket Organization. Journal of Cell Biology. 222 (2): e202204039. https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.202204039 (* equal contribution)

[5] Goodman, J.S., King, G.A., and Ünal E. (2020). Cellular quality control during gametogenesis. Experimental Cell Research. 396 (1): 112247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yexcr.2020.112247

[4] King, G.A. and Ünal, E. (2020). The dynamic nuclear periphery as a facilitator of gamete health and rejuvenation. Current Genetics. 66 (3): 487-493. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00294-019-01050-1

[3] King, G.A.*, Goodman, J.S.*, Schick, J.G., Chetlapalli, K., Jorgens, D.M., McDonald, K.L, and Ünal, E. (2019). Meiotic cellular rejuvenation is coupled to nuclear remodeling in budding yeast. eLife. 8: e47156. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.47156 (* equal contribution)

[2] Wetzel, L.A., Levin, T.C., Hulett, R.E., Chan, D., King, G.A., Aldayafleh, R., Booth, D.S., Sigg, M.A., and King, N. (2018). Predicted glycosyltransferases promote development and prevent spurious cell clumping in the choanoflagellate S. rosetta. eLife. 7: e41482. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.41482

[1] Janke, R., King, G.A., Kupiec, M, Rine, J. (2018) Pivotal roles of PCNA loading and unloading in heterochromatin function. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 115 (9): E2030-E2039. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1721573115