Peter Satir (1936–2022), cell biology pioneer and mentor

Dr. Elizabeth Dexter Hay, born in St. Augustine, Florida, on April 2, 1927, died of cancer on August 20, 2007. Betty left behind a rich legacy, not only as a superb cell and developmental biologist, but also as an educator and beloved mentor. She was a remarkable woman. Betty attended Smith College in 1944, and met biology professor Meryl Rose, who became her scientific mentor. In Rose's laboratory, Betty studied limb regeneration, and became so immersed in the work, that she completed substantial research while handling her college course load. Also, each summer she worked in Rose's lab in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. She graduated summa cum laude from Smith College in 1948 and thought of going to graduate school. Rose talked her into applying to medical school instead, because he understood that her career choices might be restricted to teaching in a women's college biology department if she had only a Ph.D. degree. Therefore, Betty applied to Johns Hopkins University Medical School and was accepted. (She considered applying to Harvard Medical School, but decided against it when she found they had no women's rest rooms.) While in her first year of medical school, her interest in regeneration, anatomy, and histology caught the eye of the department chair, Dr. Allan Grafflin, who found Betty a spot in a lab to pursue her regeneration studies. She also continued to go to Woods Hole each summer to do further work with Rose. In 1952, she was awarded her MD degree, being only one of four women in the class. She stayed on at Johns Hopkins for a year of internship, then, in 1953, was appointed as an instructor of Anatomy. The next year, she attended a meeting where Keith Porter showed electron micrographs of cytoplasmic structures. This caught her attention. Betty's words were, “I came back and, wow, from then on it was electron microscopy for me” (taken from Int J Dev Biol 2004;48:687-694, article entitled “The extracellular matrix in development and regeneration: an interview with Elizabeth D. Hay” by Robert L Trelstad). She located the only electron microscope at Johns Hopkins in the School of Public Health, and began using it. By 1956, Betty was appointed Assistant Professor of Anatomy, and was using the electron microscope to study embryological processes, but was unhappy with the quality of her micrographs. She began traveling to Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University) to see Keith Porter and George Palade for advice. Don Fawcett, who had been working with Porter and Palade, had just been appointed chairman of anatomy at Cornell University Medical College across the street from Rockefeller. Fawcett offered Betty an Assistant professorship which she accepted in 1957. By a fortunate set of circumstances, Don Fischman entered Cornell as a medical student that year. He had worked on amphibian limb regeneration with Charles Thornton as an undergraduate at Kenyon College, thus he immediately joined Betty's laboratory. They had a very productive collaboration tracing the origin of the cells in the regeneration blastema and they proved that the osteoclast formed by fusion of circulating monocytes. In 1960, Don Fawcett was appointed Hersey Professor of Anatomy at Harvard Medical School and recruited Betty for a faculty position. She always joined him there. She always credited Fawcett with inspiring and mentoring her as a scientist. At Harvard, she transitioned from the salamander to the embryonic chick cornea model system. In 1969, she was awarded the Louise Foote Pfeiffer Professorship of Embryology, and in 1975, when Fawcett stepped down as Chair of the department of Anatomy and Cellular Biology, Betty assumed that position. She served in this capacity for 18 years. Her greatest scientific contribution—illuminating the role of extracellular matrix in regulating cell behavior—led to the birth of a new field of cell and developmental biology and numerous honors and awards. Among these were the Centennial Award and the Henry Gray Award from the American Association of Anatomists, the E.B. Wilson Medal from the American Society for Cell Biology, and the FASEB Excellence in Science Award. In 1984, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. In addition to her scientific accomplishments, she contributed service and leadership to several societies associated with her discipline, including presidencies of the American Association of Anatomists (1981-1982), the American Society for Cell Biology (1976-1977), and the Society for Developmental Biology (1973-1974). Later in her career, Betty became fascinated by epithelial–mesenchymal transitions during development, and published several papers in this area. She was an idea “generator.” Stephen Sugrue once noted that Betty had a small, old, beat up book that she kept in her desk, where she put notes and bits of papers on her ideas. As people came to her lab for training, she would take out this notebook and assign them one of the many ideas. Betty retired in 2005 from the Cell Biology department at Harvard Medical School, and the location of the idea notebook is unknown. Many of her progeny would delight in reviewing the ideas it contained. In the introduction to the book she edited, “Cell Biology of the Extracellular Matrix (first edition 1981, second edition 1991), Betty states that, “Cytoskeleton, cell shape, cell migration, control of cell growth and differentiation, these are all subjects that, to be fully understood today, require a consideration of the extracellular matrix (ECM): its composition, role in development and relationship to the cell surface.” This powerful idea, coupled with Betty's dedication and passion for science, her love of teaching and mentoring, are part of her profound legacy (Fig. 1). She may no longer be with us in a physical sense, but her scientific descendants, working on many areas related to cell–matrix interactions, are well into the third generation of researchers. To Betty we say, we are sad you are gone, but we are truly better for having known you. Images of Elizabeth (Betty) Hay from her medical student days using the TEM at John's Hopkins University Medical School (upper left, from the Harvard Archives); as an Assistant Professor (upper center, photo from Jean Paul Revel); in her office as the Chair and Professor of the Department of Anatomy and Cellular Biology at Harvard (lower left, photo from Jean Paul Revel); the night she accepted the E.B. Wilson Medal from the American Society for Cell Biology in 1988 (lower center and right color photos by Mark Nathanson).

AAA award winners.

A.J. Ladman AAA/Wiley Exemplary Service Award.

The 2002 Henry Gray Award.

A tribute to George E. Palade

Mentoring in the time of Coronavirus

Molecular Biology of the CellVol. 25, No. 25 ASCB Annual Meeting AbstractsFree Access2014 ASCB/IFCB Meeting abstractsThe American Society for Cell BiologyThe American Society for Cell BiologySearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:13 Oct 2017https://doi.org/10.1091/mbc.e14-10-1437AboutSectionsView articleSupplemental MaterialView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail View articleThe abstracts of the 2014 American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) Annual Meeting, held jointly with the International Federation of Cell Biology (IFCB), are attached to this article as a searchable PDF file. To view the files, click on the “Abstracts” link in the content box in the middle column of the HTML version of this article.The ASCB and the Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Biology of the Cell (MBoC) have decided to present the Annual Meeting abstracts in this manner so that they will be clearly associated with the ASCB's basic research journal and so that they can be properly archived. The abstracts of the 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 ASCB Annual Meetings were published shortly after the meetings (American Society for Cell Biology, 2010, 2011a, 2012, 2013). The abstracts of the 2005–2009 ASCB Annual Meetings were published retroactively (American Society for Cell Biology, 2011b).Historically, abstracts of each ASCB Annual Meeting were published in a printed supplement to MBoC. (PDF files of the supplements for 1992–1996 are available online; see Table 1.) That practice was discontinued in 2005, and abstracts were instead made available on the ASCB's website. Thus the historical link between the abstracts and the journal became tenuous, although authors were encouraged to cite ASCB Annual Meeting abstracts as having appeared in a supplement to MBoC. The association between the Annual Meeting abstracts and MBoC has been restored by making the abstracts available in the online journal.TABLE 1: URLs for abstract supplements tables of contents.YearURL1992https://www.molbiolcell.org/toc/mboc/3/suppl1993https://www.molbiolcell.org/toc/mboc/4/suppl1994https://www.molbiolcell.org/toc/mboc/5/suppl1995https://www.molbiolcell.org/toc/mboc/6/suppl1996https://www.molbiolcell.org/toc/mboc/7/supplArchiving of meeting abstracts is important because they are often cited in the scientific literature. They need to be permanently available. Although the ASCB is committed to maintaining abstracts from its Annual Meetings since 2003 on its website, it is prudent to preserve such documents in multiple locations. The Annual Meeting abstracts will now be available on the MBoC website at HighWire Press and in downstream repositories such as PubMed Central as well as on the ASCB website.All abstracts submitted for ASCB Annual Meetings are screened by the abstract programming committee to ensure that they meet minimum submission standards. However, they are not peer-reviewed.Abstracts are citable. Citation styles vary by journal, but one way in which 2014 ASCB Annual Meeting abstracts may be cited is as follows:Smith AB, Jones CD (2014). Abstract title. Mol Biol Cell 25, xx (abstract #).FOOTNOTESDOI:10.1091/mbc.E14-10-1437REFERENCES American Society for Cell Biology (2010). 2010 ASCB Annual Meeting abstracts. Mol Biol Cell 21, 4299. Link, Google Scholar American Society for Cell Biology (2011a). 2011 ASCB Annual Meeting abstracts. Mol Biol Cell 22, 4705. Link, Google Scholar American Society for Cell Biology (2011b). 2005–2009 ASCB Annual Meeting abstracts. Mol Biol Cell 22, 3555. Link, Google Scholar American Society for Cell Biology (2012). 2012 ASCB Annual Meeting abstracts. Mol Biol Cell 23, 4663. Link, Google Scholar American Society for Cell Biology (2013). 2013 ASCB Annual Meeting abstracts. Mol Biol Cell 24, 3775. Link, Google ScholarFiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsCited byLabel-Free Detection of Post-translational Modifications with a Nanopore11 October 2019 | Nano Letters, Vol. 19, No. 112018 ASCB Annual Meeting abstractsThe American Society for Cell Biology13 December 2018 | Molecular Biology of the Cell, Vol. 29, No. 26Protein dynamic communities from elastic network models align closely to the communities defined by molecular dynamics20 June 2018 | PLOS ONE, Vol. 13, No. 6Specific Systems for Evaluation19 July 20182017 ASCB Annual Meeting AbstractsThe American Society for Cell BiologyDavid G. Drubin, Monitoring Editor9 January 2018 | Molecular Biology of the Cell, Vol. 28, No. 26Polymeric scaffolds for three-dimensional culture of nerve cells: a model of peripheral nerve regeneration3 October 2017 | MRS Communications, Vol. 7, No. 32016 ASCB Annual Meeting AbstractsThe American Society for Cell Biology13 October 2017 | Molecular Biology of the Cell, Vol. 27, No. 252015 ASCB Annual Meeting abstractsThe American Society for Cell Biology13 October 2017 | Molecular Biology of the Cell, Vol. 26, No. 25 Vol. 25, No. 25 December 15, 20143987-4204 Supplemental MaterialsMetrics Downloads & Citations Downloads: 327Citations: 8 History Information© 2014 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). Two months after publication it is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).PDF download

Physics in a Beautiful Context

The Women in Cell Biology (WICB) committee of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) was started in the 1970s in response to the documented underrepresentation of women in academia in general and cell biology in particular. By coincidence or causal relationship, I am happy to say that since WICB became a standing ASCB committee, women have been well represented in ASCB's leadership and as symposium speakers at the annual meeting. However, the need to provide opportunities and information useful to women in developing their careers in cell biology is still vital, given the continuing bias women face in the larger scientific arena. With its emphasis on mentoring, many of WICB's activities benefit the development of both men and women cell biologists. The WICB “Career Column” in the monthly ASCB Newsletter is a source of accessible wisdom. At the annual ASCB meeting, WICB organizes the career discussion and mentoring roundtables, childcare awards, Mentoring Theater, career-related panel and workshop, and career recognition awards. Finally, the WICB Speaker Referral Service provides a list of outstanding women whom organizers of scientific meetings, scientific review panels, and university symposia/lecture series can reach out to when facing the proverbial dilemma, “I just don't know any women who are experts.”

Laskers for Telomerase

It’s been 50 years since Women in Cell Biology (WICB) was founded by junior women cell biologists who found themselves neither represented at the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) presentations nor receiving the information, mentoring, and sponsorship they needed to advance their careers. Since then, gender parity at ASCB has made significant strides: WICB has become a standing ASCB committee, women are regularly elected president of the ASCB, and half the symposia speakers are women. Many of WICB’s pioneering initiatives for professional development, including career panels, workshops, awards for accomplishments in science and mentoring, and career mentoring roundtables, have been incorporated and adapted into broader “professional development” that benefits all members of ASCB. The time has passed when we can assume that all women benefit equally from progress. By strategically, thoughtfully, and honestly recognizing the challenges to women of the past and today, we may anticipate those new challenges that will arise in the next 50 years. WICB, in collaboration with the ASCB, can lead in data collection and access and can promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. This work will be a fitting homage to the women who, half a century ago, posted bathroom stall invitations to the first Women in Cell Biology meetup.

George E. Palade Memorial Lecture on Cell Biology of the Pancreas

The American Association of Anatomists (AAA)'s organizational archives and archival materials related to the discipline of anatomy will all have exceptional places to reside in perpetuity, thanks to the efforts of the AAA's Historical Task Force: Lynne Opperman (chair), John Lough, Andrea Pendleton, and Ann Poznanski. The Albin O. Kuhn Library at the University of Maryland–Baltimore County (UMBC) will become the archival repository for materials related to the AAA as an organization. These materials will become part of the UMBC's Center for Biological Sciences Archives (CBSA), which already houses the papers of such organizations as the American Association of Immunologists, the American Society for Cell Biology, the American Society for Microbiology, and the Tissue Culture Association. The CBSA's mission is to identify, preserve, and provide access to manuscripts, personal papers, and archives generated by individuals and institutions involved in the biological sciences. As soon as the AAA archive is catalogued at UMBC, its contents will be available to researchers. For more information about the CBSA, go to http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/speccoll/cbsa.php3. The AAA's Historical Task Force worked with CBSA officials to develop policies for gathering and organizing the society's archival resources. Past and current presidents, board members, and committee chairs received a letter that explained the archive project and inquired as to what materials they might have that should be included. In addition, members of the AAA staff have begun the process of printing and identifying photographs, and assembling papers that now reside in the national office. If you have any materials related to the AAA as an organization (as distinct from anatomy as a discipline) that you think should be included in this archive, contact exec@anatomy.org to request an AAA materials checklist. Please do not send any materials without making arrangements with the national office. The AAA is working with the National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM) of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) to establish an archival home for anatomy as a discipline. Letters. Memoirs, reminiscences, and diaries. Scrapbooks and photo albums. Professional papers. Genealogical information. Speeches and lectures. Business records. Subject files. Legal documents. Minutes and reports. Brochures and flyers. Photographs (labeled). Films, videos, and audiotapes (labeled). The AAA asks all of its members to consider donating such materials, after they first contact their own university's archive to determine whether that would be a more appropriate home. The AAA expects to appoint a “Culling Subcommittee” of members who are willing to review the actual materials before they are sent to the museum. The subcommittee's role will mainly be to assess the scientific or historical importance of the material. If you are interested in serving on this group, please contact the AAA at exec@anatomy.org. A Guide to Donating Your Personal or Family Papers to a Repository www.archivists.org/publications/donating-familyrecs.asp A Guide to Donating Your Organizational Records to a Repository www.archivists.org/publications/donating-orgrecs.asp

"All Cells Come from Cells"∗.

Cell biology, represented by its society, the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB), remains vibrant precisely because it welcomes the young. The future belongs to the students and fellows. Indeed, as ASCB president in the 1990s, together with one of my fellows at the time, Sophie Lelievre, we organized one of the first “postdoctoral societies” in the United States at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and then took the idea to the ASCB to form what now has become a standing and productive committee. The ASCB and its members know that fundamental cell biology remains relevant today, because the cell in context is both the “dancer and the dance.”