Justine Collier Close
Tenure-track Assistant Professor

Temporal and Spatial Regulation of the Bacterial Cell Cycle

The goal of our research is to achieve a detailed understanding of the complex regulatory network that governs the bacterial cell cycle, by focusing on how bacteria monitor chromosome replication and coordinate it with cell division and cell differentiation. Caulobacter crescentus provides an ideal model system for these studies. This aquatic α-proteobacterium divides asymmetrically, giving rise to a motile swarmer cell and a sessile stalked cell. We use a combination of live-cell imaging, genetic, and biochemical experimental approaches to investigate the mechanisms regulating the spatial and the temporal regulation of the C. crescentus cell cycle.

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Bachelor in Biology

• "Bacterial Genetics": BSc, 4^th semester, classes.
• "Regulation of the Bacterial Cell Cycle": BSc, 6^th semester (Dynamic Cell module), classes.
• "The Caulobacter Cell Cycle": BSc, 6^th semester, practical work (TP), with K. Eich, C. Fernández Fernández and D. Gonzalez

Master in Molecular Life Sciences

•  "Advanced Bacterial Genetics": MSc MLS, 7th semester, with Dr. C. Reimmann
•  "Cytoskeleton: from Microbes to Man": MSc MLS, 8th semester, with Prof. S. Martin
•  “Write a Review”: MSc MLS, 7th semester, tutor.
•  “Write a Fellowship”: MSc MLS, 7th semester, tutor.

Doctoral School

• “Responses of bacteria to environmental signals”: tutorial, with Prof. K. Lapouge and Prof. M. Blokesch (EPFL)

Since August 2008
Assistant Professor at the Department of Fundamental Microbiology, Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne (Lausanne, Switzerland).

April 2004 - June 2008
Post-doctoral researcher in the laboratory of Prof. Lucy Shapiro, Department of Developmental Biology, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford University (Stanford, California, USA).

September 2000 - March 2004
PhD student in the laboratory of Dr. Philippe Bouloc, Institute of Genetics and Microbiology, University Paris-Sud XI (Orsay, France).

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