Nathan W Goehring

Old Members’ Tutorial Fellow in Biochemistry

Teaching:
I am the organising tutor for Biochemistry at Univ and give tutorials for first and second year students in Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences where I cover a variety of subjects in molecular and cellular biology. I also cover more advanced topics in cell and developmental biology for second and third year students.

Research:
My research aims to unravel the design principles that underlie the emergence of cell polarity and how it is integrated into developmental programmes to define cell fate, form and function. Work in my lab combines genetics, quantitative cell biology, biophysical analysis, and computational approaches to bridge scales between molecular, cellular, and embryo-level behaviours. My specific research program focuses on the highly conserved PAR cell polarity network that underlies cell polarity in epithelia, migrating cells, and at the earliest stages of development where polarity is intimately linked to the organisation and fate specification of embryonic blastomeres. I am particularly fascinated by how information flows through this network: How does this system sense and integrate spatiotemporal information, how is it encoded and stored by the network, and how are outputs of the network integrated with and read out by developmental pathways? Key to our efforts is our multidisciplinary te am and successful collaborations across the biology/physics interface, from structural biology and biochemistry to theoretical physics and machine learning.

Publications:
Rodrigues, N. T. L., Bland, T., Ng, K., Hirani, N. and Goehring, N. W. (2024). Quantitative perturbation-phenotype maps reveal nonlinear responses underlying robustness of PAR-dependent asymmetric cell division. PLoS Biol 22, e3002437.

Bland, T., Hirani, N., Briggs, D. C., Rossetto, R., Ng, K., Taylor, I. A., McDonald, N. Q., Zwicker, D. and Goehring, N. W. (2024). Optimized PAR-2 RING dimerization mediates cooperative and selective membrane binding for robust cell polarity. EMBO J. 43, 3214–3239.

Illukkumbura, R., Hirani, N., Borrego-Pinto, J., Bland, T., Ng, K., Hubatsch, L., McQuade, J., Endres, R. G. and Goehring, N. W. (2023). Design principles for selective polarization of PAR proteins by cortical flows. Journal of Cell Biology 222, e202209111.

Ng, K., Hirani, N., Bland, T., Borrego-Pinto, J., Wagner, S., Kreysing, M. and Goehring, N. W. (2023). Cleavage furrow-directed cortical flows bias PAR polarization pathways to link cell polarity to cell division. Current Biology 33, 4298-4311.e6.

Reich, J. D., Hubatsch, L., Illukkumbura, R., Peglion, F., Bland, T., Hirani, N. and Goehring, N. W. (2019). Regulated Activation of the PAR Polarity Network Ensures a Timely and Specific Response to Spatial Cues. Current Biology 29, 1911-1923.e5.

Hubatsch, L., Peglion, F., Reich, J. D., Rodrigues, N. T. L., Hirani, N., Illukkumbura, R. and Goehring, N. W. (2019). A cell-size threshold limits cell polarity and asymmetric division potential. Nature Physics 15, 1078–1085.

Rodriguez, J., Peglion, F., Martin, J., Hubatsch, L., Reich, J., Hirani, N., Gubieda, A. G., Roffey, J., Fernandes, A. R., St Johnston, D., et al. (2017). aPKC Cycles between Functionally Distinct PAR Protein Assemblies to Drive Cell Polarity. Developmental Cell 42, 400-415.e9.

Goehring, N. W., Trong, P. K., Bois, J. S., Chowdhury, D., Nicola, E. M., Hyman, A. A. and Grill, S. W. (2011). Polarization of PAR Proteins by Advective Triggering of a Pattern-Forming System. Science 334, 1137–1141.