Rebecca Heald: Passionate about cycles

W hen she isn't cycling up a mountain, Rebecca Heald is blazing new trails in cell biology. Her work on dynamic cytoskeletal structures involved in mitosis and meio-sis—particularly the microtubule-based mitotic spindle—has continually set the pace in her fi eld. After completing her graduate studies on nuclear lamins in Frank McKeon's laboratory at Harvard (1), Heald sought a change of scenery and research project. She moved to Germany where she joined Eric Karsenti in pursuing the mysteries of the microtubule cytoskel-eton. A fortuitous collaboration led Rebecca to make a breakthrough in the fi eld of spindle biology: DNA alone can nucleate the formation of a bipolar mitotic spindle apparatus (2). continued to probe the mysteries of the mitotic spindle (3–5). She's a tough person to catch, but she slowed her pace long enough to discuss her experiences with us. What are you most passionate about? In addition to the obvious things like chocolate and margaritas, I would have to say I'm passionate about cycling and microscopy. What makes you passionate about cycling? Cycling's something I have loved for a long time, but it wasn't until I was coming up for tenure that I got back into it seriously. And that was really because of my husband, who shares the cycling passion. He's a good infl uence on me. It's great to have something to focus on outside of science, and cycling is now a very important aspect of my life. I love having a recreation that really challenges me, and that's so different from my work. You go to beautiful places, you test your limits, you're under your own power and it feels great. Do you cycle competitively? No, I don't like to crash, so I don't race. But I have done some pretty big rides. I did the Raid of the Pyrenees, which is cycling from the Atlantic to the Mediter-ranean through the Pyrenees in 100 hours. You go over something like 20 mountain passes, some of them as high as 2,115 meters. That was probably my biggest non-science accomplishment. Also that year, I rode the Everest Challenge , in which you climb the equivalent of Mount Everest—35,000 vertical feet in about 200 miles—over two days. Climbing mountains sounds tough. I love to climb mountains on my bike— and it is hard. You know, as you age you get more physical problems as things start falling apart on you, …