Elizabeth Chen: Fusing cells press closer

M ost cells in the body are solo entities, self-contained within a cell membrane. But there are certain cases in which cells meld together. Skeletal muscle cells, for example, are multinucleate syncytia that form through the process of cell–cell fusion. Osteo-clasts, a type of cell involved in bone remodeling, also fuse together to promote better bone resorption. And you would not be reading this article were it not for a cell–cell fusion event at the very beginning of your life: the one that takes place between sperm and egg. In her lab at Johns Hopkins University, Elizabeth Chen studies cell–cell fusion in Drosophila myoblasts, aiming to uncover the fundamentals of the process (1). Lever-aging the organism's tractable genetics together with advanced imaging techniques (2), her group has demonstrated that myoblast fusion is an actin-dependent process (3, 4) wherein one cell pushes a protrusion deep into its prospective fusion partner (2, 5). Now her lab is taking an even closer look at the determinants of cell–cell fusion, as we learned when we spoke with her recently. I understand you're originally from China… I grew up in a northeastern province in China in a city called Changchun. Both my parents were teachers in a hydroelectric institute. So my family was very intellectual. I read a lot of books when I was little, and I was always curious about nature. I just loved being outdoors. I still do actually. I think I always wanted to be a scientist. [Laughs] Looking back, I'm not certain whether it was because of the atmosphere at that time in China or because of my love of nature. At the time science was considered a really important career to pursue. In school we were always told that scientists are one of the driving forces of humanity and civilization. I agree! I went to college at Peking University to study biochemistry, but I was a little disappointed. For example, our cell biology textbook at that time was outdated and printed on a hundred pages of 6-inch by 8-inch paper. I just felt like I didn't get to learn a lot in school, and that's actually one of the reasons why I came to the States. Fortunately, both of my parents had left home at a young age to develop their careers in a different place, so they were pretty supportive of me going to the States to further my …