Ronen ZAIDEL-BAR
Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Israel
Laboratory website
Zaidel-Bar Cell Adhesion Lab
MBI Director honoured with ASCB Senior Leadership Award
MBI Director Prof. Li Rong has been awarded the 2019 Sandra K. Masur Senior Leadership Award from the American Society of Cell Biology (ASCB). This award recognizes cell biology researchers whose “outstanding scientific achievements are coupled with a record of active leadership in mentoring both men and women in scientific careers.”
2019 Bootcamp in Mechanobiology: An Integrative Approach to Understand Cell Function
MBI's 10-day "bootcamp" style course covers fundamental concepts and practical approaches in understanding cellular functions. The Bootcamp lectures are open to all interested graduate students and post-docs.
Kedsarin Fong Ngern
Research Fellow, Kanchanawong Group
2019 Frontiers in Mechanobiology
MBI is hosting a one day symposium, Frontiers in Mechanobiology, on July 15th, 2019. The symposium will feature nine speakers and a full schedule of talks of interest to those on the cutting edge of mechanobiology. The event is free and open to all interested, there is no registration required.
Why Salmonella decide to lay low
Studying dormant biofilms in live worm hosts
Prof Jacques Prost visiting from Institut Curie
Jacques Prost, Emeritus Research Director, Institut Curie, Département de Physicochimie du Vivant, visiting 16 Jul - 20 Aug 2019.
Ronen Zaidel-Bar
Visiting Faculty
Currently Visting
6-12 Nov 2018
Office: T-Lab, Level 5
Research Areas
Cell-cell and cell-matrix adhesion, Regulation of actomyosin contractility and dynamics, C. elegans development, mechanics and molecular mechanisms of morphogenesis
Research Interests
- How do specific cytoskeletal proteins contribute to the organization and function of cell adhesion and actomyosin structures?
- How are signals processed within the “adhesome” and “contractome” to arrive at the appropriate cytoskeletal arrangement for a given cell state?
- How do adhesion sites and the cytoskeleton sense and respond to external mechanical forces?
Biography
Dr Zaidel-Bar obtained his Ph.D. working with Prof Benny Geiger (Weizmann Institute of Science) on the role of force in regulating cell-matrix adhesions. Their work first focused on single proteins and evolved to encompass the entire adhesome network. In his Postdoctoral training with Prof Jeff Hardin (University of Wisconsin – Madison) Dr Zaidel-Bar switched from studying cells in culture to employing the genetic model organism C. elegans for the study of cell-cell adhesions during development. Dr Zaidel-Bar was attracted to Singapore by the opening of MBI and was awarded the Singapore National Research Foundation Fellowship for promising young investigators.
Education
PhD Weizmann Institute of Science
Recent Publications
- Bertocchi C, Alegría JJ, Vásquez-Sepúlveda S, Ibanez-Prat R, Srinivasan A, Arrano-Valenzuela I, Castro-Pereira B, Soto-Montandon C, Trujillo-Espergel A, Montenegro-Rojas I, Deguchi S, Owen GI, Kanchanawong P, Cerda M, Motta G, Zaidel-Bar R, and Ravasio A. Systematic AI-assisted screening of the cadhesome to map epithelial monolayer mechanics. Cell Commun Signal 2026;. [PMID: 42399739]
- Ray S, Agarwal P, Nitzan A, Nédélec F, and Zaidel-Bar R. Actin capping protein regulates actomyosin contractility to maintain germline architecture in C. elegans. Development 2023;. [PMID: 36897576]
- Avivi Kela S, Sethi K, Tan PY, Suresh D, Ong HT, Castaneda PG, Amin MR, Laviv T, Cram EJ, Faix J, and Zaidel-Bar R. Tension-dependent RHGF-1 recruitment to stress fibers drives robust spermathecal tissue contraction. J Cell Biol 2022; 222(2). [PMID: 36574264]
- Chen Z, Oh D, Biswas KH, Zaidel-Bar R, and Groves JT. Probing the effect of clustering on EphA2 receptor signaling efficiency by subcellular control of ligand-receptor mobility. Elife 2021; 10. [PMID: 34414885]
- Hu S, Grobe H, Guo Z, Wang Y, Doss BL, Pan M, Ladoux B, Bershadsky AD, and Zaidel-Bar R. Reciprocal regulation of actomyosin organization and contractility in non-muscle cells by tropomyosins and alpha-actinins. Mol. Biol. Cell 2019;:mbcE19020082. [PMID: 31216217]
- Desai SK, Padmanabhan A, Harshe S, Zaidel-Bar R, and Kenney LJ. Salmonella biofilms program innate immunity for persistence in Caenorhabditis elegans. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2019;. [PMID: 31160462]
- Bouffard J, Cecchetelli AD, Clifford C, Sethi K, Zaidel-Bar R, and Cram EJ. The RhoGAP SPV-1 regulates calcium signaling to control the contractility of the C. elegans spermatheca during embryo transits. Mol. Biol. Cell 2019;:mbcE18100633. [PMID: 30726159]
- Priti A, Ong HT, Toyama Y, Padmanabhan A, Dasgupta S, Krajnc M, and Zaidel-Bar R. Syncytial germline architecture is actively maintained by contraction of an internal actomyosin corset. Nat Commun 2018; 9(1):4694. [PMID: 30410005]
- Agarwal P, and Zaidel-Bar R. Principles of Actomyosin Regulation In Vivo. Trends Cell Biol. 2018;. [PMID: 30385150]
- Chen Z, Oh D, Biswas KH, Yu C, Zaidel-Bar R, and Groves JT. Spatially modulated ephrinA1:EphA2 signaling increases local contractility and global focal adhesion dynamics to promote cell motility. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2018;. [PMID: 29866846]
