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| Name |
Mayor, Satyajit (Jitu) |
| Location
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National Centre for Biological Sciences |
| Primary Field
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Cellular and Developmental Biology |
| Secondary Field
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Evolutionary Biology |
 Election Citation
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Mayor has pioneered microscopy methods for understanding the organization of proteins on the plasma membrane. His discoveries of actin-dependent, nanoscale clustering of membrane proteins and new pathways for endocytosis have generating new theories of plasma membrane dynamics and their associated biological functions. |
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Research Interests
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Employing a multi-disciplinary approach, Jitu Mayor's laboratory has developed new concepts (nanoscale complexes as units of meso-scale membrane organization), new tools (fluorescence anisotropy microscopy) and new methodologies (quantitative physical tools) to understand and study organization and dynamics of membranes in living cells. This has led an understanding of how a cell regulates local organization of its cell membrane constituents, from the nanometer scale in specialized domains in cell membranes (termed rafts) to the micron scale in endocytic pathways. His work has inspired a new picture of the cell membrane as an active composite of a fluid lipid bilayer intertwined with a dynamic cortical cytoskeleton immediately beneath. This has led to the use of the language of active mechanics in addition to existing equilibrium notions to understand how regulated lipid and protein assemblies arise in cell membranes. His work has also provided an understanding of mechanisms and roles for poorly appreciated mechanisms of endocytosis that do not deploy the classical clathrin and dynamin molecular players. Together, Jitu Mayor's work is important for understanding how signaling reactions in cell membranes are influenced by local membrane composition and how the global composition of the cell membrane may be regulated. |
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