Members — The Cyert Lab

Principal Investigator

Martha S. Cyert mcyert@Stanford.edu Office: 410B Bass Biology

Martha received her A.B. from Harvard University, Ph.D. from UCSF (Marc Kirschner lab), postdoc at UC Berkeley (Jeremy Thorner lab) and joined the faculty of the Stanford Biology Department in 1992 as an Assistant Professor. She is the Dr. Nancy Chang Professor and A Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate education and has been Chair of the Biology department since September 1, 2020. Martha is active in the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology where she serves on the meetings committee. Since pioneering studies of yeast calcineurin, the Cyert lab now studies the human enzyme, and is leveraging the analysis and discovery of calcineurin-binding SLiMs (Short Linear Motifs) to gain insights into calcineurin signaling. Outside the lab, Martha enjoys hiking, taking photographs and hunting for mushrooms.

Research Scientist

Angela Barth angelab@stanford.edu

Angela received her B.S. and M.S. from University of Hamburg and did her Ph.D. at Max-Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany working with Profs Gerisch and Abel on cell adhesion in Dictostelium discoideum. She then did postdoctoral work with Profess W. James Nelson at Stanford University and continued working in the Nelson lab as a research scientist studying various aspects of cell adhesion, epithelial polarity and cell signaling. She joined the Cyert lab in 2021, where she is investigating roles for calcineurin in breast cancer and pancreatitis.

Postdoctoral Fellows

Will King wrking@stanford.edu

Will received his B.S. from Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio with a major in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He studied with Jana Patton-Vogt at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA for his Ph.D. work on lipid metabolism and physiology of the pathogenic yeast, Candida albicans. Currently, Will is examining lipidation of the membrane-associated CNß1 isoform, and is discovering roles for dynamic palmitoylation-depalmitoylation to regulate this enzyme. Will is an avid reader and enjoys spending time with friends over a good margarita.

Richard Smith rxsmith@stanford.edu

Richard received his MScR from the University of Edinburgh, where he began to study phosphatase signaling with Professor Adele Marston. His PhD work focused on how PP1 and PP2A regulate mitosis from the kinetochore, under the supervision of Dr Adrian Saurin at the University of Dundee. In the Cyert lab, Richard is investigating the role of calcineurin signaling at the nuclear pore complex. Outside the lab, Richard enjoys hiking, rock-climbing, playing music and swing dancing.

Sneha Roy sneharoy@stanford.edu

Sneha received her Ph.D under supervision of Professor Rajiv Bhat from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. Her research focused on employing biophysical tools to decipher the complex cascades of events involved in aggregation of intrinsically disordered proteins that are known to play key role in debilitating diseases such as neurodegeneration and cancer. In the Cyert Lab, she is working on two projects that aim to identify novel Calcineurin substrates in human proteome, and investigate Calcineurin signaling in acute pancreatitis. Her other major goal in the lab is to investigate the role of Calcineurin signaling in the regulation of biomolecular condensates formed by liquid-liquid phase separation of substrate proteins. In her leisure time, she unwinds by dancing, traveling, reading her fiction novels or spending quality time with her pup and family.

Graduate Students

Devin Bradburn Bradburn@Stanford.edu

Devin is a Longhorn! He received his B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Texas, Austin where he studied enzymes that resolve G4 quadraplexes in DNA/RNA with Rick Russell. Devin joined the Stanford Biosciences Ph.D. program in 2017, and his project in the Cyert lab is determining the function of C16Orf74, an uncharacterized ORF that binds calcineurin and targets it to membranes. Devin is an avid audiobook listener and enjoys rock climbing.