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We are pleased to announce that the winner of the award for the Best Paper
published in 2002 is Stefan Westermann for the paper entitled `Identification
of CfNek, a novel member of the NIMA family of cell cycle regulators, as a
polypeptide copurifying with tubulin glutamylation activity in
Crithidia' [Westermann, S. and Weber, K.
(2002). J. Cell Sci.
115, 5003-5012].
The prize, $1000, is awarded annually to the first author of the paper that is judged by the Editors and Editorial Board to be the best published in the Journal that year. To be considered for the prize, the first author must be a student or postdoc of no more than five years standing.
Stefan Westermann was born near Hamm, Germany, where he also went to
school. He then studied biochemistry at the University of Hannover and for his
PhD joined the laboratory of Klaus Weber at the Max-Planck Institute for
biophysical Chemistry in Goettingen. There he studied the post-translational
glutamylation of microtubules, that is, the attachment of long side chains of
glutamic acid to the C-terminus of - and ß-tubulin. This is a very
prominent modification in mammalian brain, as well as in basal bodies, cilia
and flagella, yet at the time no one knew anything about the enzymology of
this process. Because the purification of glutamylation activity from
mammalian brains proved to be very difficult, he turned to trypanosomes, such
as Crithidia fasciculata, which have a highly glutamylated
microtubular cytoskeleton. In a collaboration with Andre Schneider (University
of Fribourg, Switzerland) he demonstrated that isolated trypanosomal
cytoskeletons contain an activity that incorporates glutamic acid into tubulin
in an ATP-dependent manner (Westermann et
al., 1999
). He then went on to further purify the activity (which
involved long hours in the coldroom) and finally cloned the major protein band
of the purification. Excitingly, the protein belongs to a family of enzymes
that have roles in assembly and maturation of the centrosome as well as in
cell cycle regulation (Westermann and
Weber, 2002
). The challenge is now to find out which other members
of the NIMA family (there are 11 in the human genome) have roles in tubulin
modification as well. Since very little is known about how MAPs and motor
proteins recognize and distinguish different subsets of microtubules within
the cell, the tubulin modifications have the potential to become very exciting
in the future.
Stefan started a postdoctoral position in the laboratory of David Drubin and Georjana Barnes at the University of California, Berkeley last summer, where he is currently studying kinetochore proteins in budding yeast.
References
Westermann, S., Schneider, A., Horn, E. K. and Weber, K.
(1999). Isolation of Crithidia tubulin polyglutamylase; binding
to microtubules and tubulin, and glutamylation of mammalian brain - and
ß-tubulins. J. Cell Sci.
112,2185
-2193.
Westermann, S. and Weber, K. (2002). Identification of CfNek, a novel member of the NIMA family of cell cycle regulators, as a polypeptide copurifying with tubulin glutamylation activity in Crithidia. J. Cell. Sci. 115,5003 -5012.[CrossRef][Medline]