“We are very pleased to have attracted researchers of the caliber of Drs. Jaspersen, Si, and Yu,” says William B. Neaves, President and CEO of the Stowers Institute. “Each of them adds to the Institute’s investment in basic research of the highest quality, and the projects they will pursue have the potential to reveal more effective means of preserving health and preventing disease.”

     “The addition of these researchers to the Stowers Institute is exciting,” says Robb Krumlauf, Ph.D., Scientific Director. “Dr. Si’s and Dr. Yu’s work in developmental neuroscience will strengthen this area of study at the Institute, and Dr. Jaspersen will join a distinguished group of laboratory leaders in chromosome dynamics.”

     All three will begin appointments at the Institute early in 2005. These appointments bring the Stowers Institute to a total of 17 independent research programs in cell and molecular biology complemented by three technology centers devoted to bioinformatics, imaging, and proteomics.

Sue Jaspersen, Assistant Investigator

Sue L. Jaspersen, Ph.D., joins the Stowers Institute for Medical Research as an Assistant Investigator. Dr. Jaspersen’s research will focus on the mechanism and regulation of spindle pole body (SPB) duplication in budding yeast. The SPB is the microtubule organizing center of the yeast cell. It plays a critical role in cellular division and is the yeast equivalent of the centrosome found in human cells. Defects in human centrosome duplication can cause genetic instability leading to incomplete sets of chromosomes. This is a common correlate of birth defects and cancer.      Dr. Jaspersen is a Helen Hay Whitney Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Mark Winey at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She held an appointment as a Keck Foundation Fellow from 2000 to 2001 and received the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Career Development Award in 2004. Dr. Jaspersen holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California at San Francisco and an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Georgetown University where she graduated summa cum laude.

Kausik Si, Assistant Investigator

Kausik Si, Ph.D., joins the Institute from the Columbia University Center for Neurobiology and Behavior where he has conducted postdoctoral research since 1999 with Dr. Eric Kandel, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Dr. Si's laboratory will concentrate on how information is acquired via learning and stored over time as memories in the brain. He will devote special attention to the role of synapses in memory.       Dr. Si was awarded a Jane Coffin Childs Fellowship in 2000 and a Francis Goelet Fellowship in Neuroscience in 2002. He earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and holds undergraduate and master's degrees in physics, chemistry, mathematics, biochemistry, and molecular biology from the University of Calcutta.

Ron Yu, Assistant Investigator

C. Ron Yu, Ph.D., will join the Institute from the Columbia University Center for Neurobiology and Behavior. Dr. Yu completed his undergraduate degrees in the Department of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and earned his Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular and Biophysical Studies at Columbia University. From 1996 through 2000, Dr. Yu was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University. He served subsequently as a research associate there, and since 2001, Dr. Yu has held a National Institutes of Health Mentored Research Scientist Award from the National Institute of Mental Health.      While at Columbia University, Dr. Yu worked closely with Richard Axel, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system. At the Stowers Institute, Dr. Yu will continue his investigation of how olfactory sensory information is detected, integrated, and processed in the brain to influence specific innate behaviors.

About the Institute
     Situated on a 10-acre campus in the heart of Kansas City, Missouri, the Stowers Institute for Medical Research conducts research on the fundamental processes of cellular life. Through basic research of the highest quality, the Stowers Institute seeks insights that will lead to more effective ways of preventing and curing disease. The Institute was founded in 1994 by Jim and Virginia Stowers, two cancer survivors who have dedicated their fortune to supporting the basic research that will provide long-term solutions to gene-based diseases.