Biology

Rupal Thazhath, Academic Professional

Ph.D., Cell Biology, University of Georgia, 2003

Phone: 404-385-7230
Fax: 404-894-0519
Office: A106 Cherry Emerson

Biography

Rupal Thazhath received her doctorate in Cell Biology from the University of Georgia in 2003. She received further training in Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology as a postdoctoral fellow studying the cellular responses involved after injury to the central nervous system, before joining the Department of Biology as an Academic Professional in May 2006. She teaches introductory biology for majors and non-majors, honors freshman biology, is in charge of all introductory biology laboratories including 1510L, 1520L, 1511L and 1521L. The honors labs she leads are designed around the students brainstorming to either find ways to achieve a set objective or to design their own semester long research project.

Dr. Thazhath also works closely with CETL in furthering Graduate Teaching Assistant training and is in charge of GTA training for the Department of Biology. She also is co-instructor of a course with Dr. Steve Harvey, designed to round out graduate student training by introducing new graduate students to some of the tools needed as scientists and teachers, and where a variety of concerns and issues affecting all successful scientists and teachers are discussed.

Selected Publications

Thazhath R ., Dziadosz M-J., Duan J., Gorovsky M.A., Frankel J., and Gaertig J. "Cell context-specific effects of the beta-tubulin glycylation domain on assembly and size of microtubular organelles". Mol. Biol. Cell 15, 4136-4147 (2004).

Brown J.M., Noah A.F., Pandiyan G., Thazhath R., and Gaertig J. " Hypoxia regulates assembly of cilia in suppressors of Tetrahymena lacking an IFT subunit gene". Mol. Biol. Cell; 14, 3192-3207 (2003).

Thazhath R., Liu C., Gaertig J. "Polyglycylation domain of beta-tubulin maintains axonemal architecture and affects cytokinesis in Tetrahymena". Nat. Cell Biol. 4, 256-259 (2002).

Xia L., Hai B., Gao Y., Burnette D., Thazhath R., Duan J., Bre M.H., Levilliers N., Gorovsky M.A., Gaertig J. "Polyglycylation of tubulin is essential and affects cell motility and division in Tetrahymena thermophila ". J. Cell Biol. 149, 1097-1106 (2000).