Sarah L. Keller

Sarah L. Keller is an American biophysicist, studying problems at the intersection between biology and chemistry. She investigates self-assembling soft matter systems.[1][2][3] Her current main research focus is understanding how simple lipid mixtures within bilayer membranes give rise to membrane's complex phase behavior.[4][5][6][7]

Sarah L. Keller
NationalityAmerican
Alma materRice University, Princeton University
AwardsThomas E. Thompson Award (2014); Avanti Award in Lipids (Biophysical Society, 2017)
Scientific career
FieldsBiophysics
InstitutionsUniversity of Washington
Doctoral advisorSol M. Gruner

Keller is a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) (2011)[8] and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (2013) and has won multiple awards including the Thomas E. Thompson Award (2014)[9] and the Avanti Award in Lipids (Biophysical Society, 2017).[10] She is a professor of chemistry and adjunct professor of physics at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA.[11]

Early life and education

Keller studied her undergraduate degree at Rice University and gained her Ph.D. degree in physics at Princeton University in 1995. Her graduate study was on the "interaction between Ion-channels and Lipid Membranes", supervised by Dr. Sol M. Gruner. She was a postdoctoral researcher at University of California Santa Barbara and Stanford University before becoming professor at University of Washington.[11]

Major publications

Keller studies the organization of lipids in membranes.[11][12][13] Cell membranes are composed of lipids and proteins. Her early work "Separation of liquid phases in giant vesicles of ternary mixtures of phospholipids and cholesterol" [4] used fluorescence microscopy to observe a mixture of saturated and unsaturated lipids and observed microscopic separations of two coexisting liquid phases—miscibility transition. Her works contributed to models of protein aggregation within membranes and the theory of membrane lateral pressure.[14]

Her recent work "Hallmarks of Reversible Separation of Living, Unperturbed Cell Membranes into Two Liquid Phases" found reversible phase separations over multiple warming and cooling cycles in yeast vacuoles, taking a step further towards conditions in living cells.[15]

Because early life has the simple form of RNA encapsulated by fatty acid, Keller's work could also explore mysteries about the origin of life.[16]

Awards and honors

Keller was awarded the University of Washington Distinguished Teaching Award in 2006[23] and the department of chemistry Outstanding Teaching Award in 2004.

References
  1. Keller, Sarah L.; McConnell, Harden M. (1999-02-15). "Stripe Phases in Lipid Monolayers near a Miscibility Critical Point". Physical Review Letters. 82 (7): 1602–1605. Bibcode:1999PhRvL..82.1602K. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.82.1602. ISSN 0031-9007.
  2. Adams, Marie; Dogic, Zvonimir; Keller, Sarah L.; Fraden, Seth (May 1998). "Entropically driven microphase transitions in mixtures of colloidal rods and spheres". Nature. 393 (6683): 349–352. Bibcode:1998Natur.393..349A. doi:10.1038/30700. ISSN 0028-0836. S2CID 1676273.
  3. "Keller Research Group: University of Washington". faculty.washington.edu. Retrieved 2019-03-08.
  4. Keller, Sarah L.; Veatch, Sarah L. (2003-11-01). "Separation of Liquid Phases in Giant Vesicles of Ternary Mixtures of Phospholipids and Cholesterol". Biophysical Journal. 85 (5): 3074–3083. Bibcode:2003BpJ....85.3074V. doi:10.1016/S0006-3495(03)74726-2. ISSN 0006-3495. PMC 1303584. PMID 14581208.
  5. Veatch, Sarah L.; Keller, Sarah L. (2002-12-09). "Organization in Lipid Membranes Containing Cholesterol". Physical Review Letters. 89 (26): 268101. Bibcode:2002PhRvL..89z8101V. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.268101. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 12484857.
  6. Stanich, Cynthia A.; Honerkamp-Smith, Aurelia R.; Putzel, Gregory Garbès; Warth, Christopher S.; Lamprecht, Andrea K.; Mandal, Pritam; Mann, Elizabeth; Hua, Thien-An D.; Keller, Sarah L. (July 2013). "Coarsening Dynamics of Domains in Lipid Membranes". Biophysical Journal. 105 (2): 444–454. Bibcode:2013BpJ...105..444S. doi:10.1016/j.bpj.2013.06.013. PMC 3714885. PMID 23870265.
  7. Cornell, Caitlin E.; Skinkle, Allison D.; He, Shushan; Levental, Ilya; Levental, Kandice R.; Keller, Sarah L. (August 2018). "Tuning Length Scales of Small Domains in Cell-Derived Membranes and Synthetic Model Membranes". Biophysical Journal. 115 (4): 690–701. Bibcode:2018BpJ...115..690C. doi:10.1016/j.bpj.2018.06.027. PMC 6103737. PMID 30049406.
  8. "APS Fellow Archive". www.aps.org. Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  9. Goñi, Felix M.; Longo, Marjorie (2014). "Subgroups MSAS". Biophysical Newsletter. p. 12. Retrieved 16 August 2020.
  10. "Avanti Awards in Lipids". Avanti Polar Lipids. Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  11. "Sarah L. Keller - UW Dept. of Chemistry". depts.washington.edu. Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  12. Miller, Johanna L. (February 2018). "Membrane phase demixing seen in living cells". Physics Today. 71 (2): 21–23. Bibcode:2018PhT....71b..21M. doi:10.1063/PT.3.3838. ISSN 0031-9228.
  13. "Demixing in cell membranes". Physics Today. 2017. doi:10.1063/PT.6.1.20171221a.
  14. "Keller Garners Avanti Young Investigator Award". www.asbmb.org. Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  15. Rayermann, Scott P.; Rayermann, Glennis E.; Cornell, Caitlin E.; Merz, Alexey J.; Keller, Sarah L. (December 2017). "Hallmarks of Reversible Separation of Living, Unperturbed Cell Membranes into Two Liquid Phases". Biophysical Journal. 113 (11): 2425–2432. Bibcode:2017BpJ...113.2425R. doi:10.1016/j.bpj.2017.09.029. PMC 5768487. PMID 29211996.
  16. Yong, Ed (August 12, 2019). "A New Clue to How Life Originated". The Atlantic. Retrieved 16 August 2020.
  17. "Society Names 2021 Fellows". Biophysical Society. Retrieved November 4, 2020.
  18. "Biophysical Society Names 2017 Award Recipients" (PDF). Biophysical Society. August 2, 2016. Retrieved 16 August 2020.
  19. "AAAS Members Elected as Fellows". American Association for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved 16 August 2020.
  20. American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (10 December 2009). "University of Washington professor garners Avanti Young Investigator Award". EurekaAlert. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Retrieved 16 August 2020.
  21. ASBMB LIPID RESEARCH DIVISION (2010). "Exploring Membranes: The Work of Sarah L. Keller" (PDF). ASBMB Today. No. June. p. 32. Retrieved 2020-08-16.
  22. "Avanti Awards in Lipids". Avanti. 2010. Retrieved 16 August 2020.
  23. "Previous award recipients | Center for Teaching and Learning". Retrieved 2019-03-04.
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