Affiliation: Duke University, Department of Biology

Masayuki Onishi graduated from the University of Tokyo with a thesis on the role of septin-family proteins during sporulation in fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. He then received a postdoc training at Stanford University Department of Genetics under supervision of Dr. John R. Pringle studying the mechanisms of cell division in budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. At Duke, he runs a research lab that studies the mechanisms of cell division, cell cycle, organellar distribution, and the cytoskeleton.

The Onishi lab is interested in the evolution of the mechanisms of cell division in eukaryotes. Currently, the lab uses the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii as a model and investigates the roles of three elements of the cytoskeleton, F-actin, microtubules, and septin.