Bio:

Dr. Megan King is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Cell Biology at Yale School of Medicine and Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology at Yale University. She received her B.A. in Biochemistry from Brandeis University working with Dr. Susan Lowey on the functions of skeletal myosin light chains and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from the University of Pennsylvania working with Dr. Mark Lemmon on dynamin and its antiviral cousin, MxB, which she found docks at nuclear pore complexes and influences nuclear transport. During her postdoctoral training with Dr. Günter Blobel at Rockefeller University, Dr. King discovered new mechanisms for the targeting and function of integral inner nuclear membrane proteins. Her work uncovered a critical physical network comprised of chromatin inside the nucleus, nuclear envelope membrane proteins, and the cytoplasmic cytoskeleton. Since founding her own group at Yale in 2009, Dr. King has continued to investigate the broad array of biological functions that are integrated at the nuclear envelope. Her group was the first to demonstrate that chromatin and its tethering to the nuclear envelope plays a critical role in determining the mechanical stiffness of nuclei. Her team has also made key contributions to our understanding of genome integrity pathways and mechanotransduction through the LINC complex. Dr. King was named a Searle Scholar in 2011 and is a recipient of the NIH New Innovator Award.