Michael Rosen, Ph.D.

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Dr. Rosen is the Chair of the Department of Biophysics at UT Southwestern Medical Center and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.  Dr. Rosen received undergraduate degrees in chemistry and in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1987.  He then spent a year in Alan Battersby’s lab in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge as a Winston Churchill Foundation Scholar.  He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University in 1993 under the direction of Stuart Schreiber, where he studied the structure and function of the FK506 binding protein, FKBP12.  He was a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell post-doctoral fellow in the laboratories of Tony Pawson and Lewis Kay at the University of Toronto, where he studied regulation of the signaling adaptor protein, Crk, and developed methods of selective methyl group labeling of proteins for NMR spectroscopy.  Dr. Rosen started his independent laboratory in 1996 in the Cellular Biochemistry and Biophysics Program at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, and moved to UTSW in 2001. 

The Rosen lab seeks to understand the formation, regulation and functions of enigmatic, cellular compartments termed biomolecular condensates.  These evolutionarily conserved structures concentrate diverse but specific groups of molecules without a surrounding membrane.  Condensates appear to form through the physical process of liquid-liquid phase separation.  Using a range of techniques, including biochemical reconstitution and in vitro and cellular microsopies, we investigate phase separation in both engineered and natural condensates.  The former, in their simplified nature, enable precise isolation of key molecular parameters governing condensate behaviors, revealing general principles. The latter allow demonstration of these principles in more complex natural biochemical and cellular systems.  Ultimately, we seek to understand cell organization on scales spanning nanometers to microns.

The Rosen lab website can be found at:  www.utsouthwestern.edu/labs/rosen/

Undergraduate

University of Michigan-Ann Arb (1987), Chemistry

Undergraduate

University of Michigan-Ann Arb (1987), Chemical Engineering

Graduate School

Harvard University (1993), Organic Chemistry

• biochemistry
• Biological phase separation
• cell biology of the actin cytoskeleton
• polymer physics/chemistry
• structural biology

Featured Publications

Organization of Chromatin by Intrinsic and Regulated Phase Separation.

Gibson BA, Doolittle LK, Schneider MWG, Jensen LE, Gamarra N, Henry L, Gerlich DW, Redding S, Rosen MK, Cell 2019 Sep

Biomolecular condensates: organizers of cellular biochemistry.

Banani SF, Lee HO, Hyman AA, Rosen MK Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 2017 Feb

Compositional Control of Phase-Separated Cellular Bodies.

Banani SF, Rice AM, Peeples WB, Lin Y, Jain S, Parker R, Rosen MK Cell 2016 Jul 166 3 651-63

Sequence Determinants of Intracellular Phase Separation by Complex Coacervation of a Disordered Protein.

Pak CW, Kosno M, Holehouse AS, Padrick SB, Mittal A, Ali R, Yunus AA, Liu DR, Pappu RV, Rosen MK Mol. Cell 2016 Jul 63 1 72-85

Phase separation of signaling molecules promotes T cell receptor signal transduction.

Su X, Ditlev JA, Hui E, Xing W, Banjade S, Okrut J, King DS, Taunton J, Rosen MK, Vale RD Science 2016 Apr 352 6285 595-9

Formation and Maturation of Phase-Separated Liquid Droplets by RNA-Binding Proteins.

Lin Y, Protter DS, Rosen MK, Parker R Mol. Cell 2015 Sep

Phase transitions of multivalent proteins can promote clustering of membrane receptors.

Banjade S, Rosen MK Elife 2014 Oct 3

Phase transitions in the assembly of multivalent signalling proteins.

Li P, Banjade S, Cheng HC, Kim S, Chen B, Guo L, Llaguno M, Hollingsworth JV, King DS, Banani SF, Russo PS, Jiang QX, Nixon BT, Rosen MK Nature 2012 Mar 483 7389 336-40

Quantitative reconstitution of yeast RNA processing bodies.

Currie SL, Xing W, Muhlrad D, Decker CJ, Parker R, Rosen MK, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2023 Apr 120 14 e2214064120

A mitotic chromatin phase transition prevents perforation by microtubules.

Schneider MWG, Gibson BA, Otsuka S, Spicer MFD, Petrovic M, Blaukopf C, Langer CCH, Batty P, Nagaraju T, Doolittle LK, Rosen MK, Gerlich DW, Nature 2022 Sep 609 7925 183-190

• Election to National Academy of Sciences
  (2020)
• Wiley Prize
  (2020)
• Allen Distinguished Investigator, a program funded through The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group
  (2018-2021)
• Emil Kaiser Award, Protein Society
  (2018)
• Mar Nell and F. Andrew Bell Distinguished Chair in Biochemistry
  (2009)
• Carolyn R. Bacon Professorship in Medical Science and Education
  (2006)
• Edith & Peter O’Donnell Award from the Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science
  (2006)
• Howard Hughes Medical Institute
  (2005)
• Boyer Award, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
  (2001)
• Sidney Kimmel Scholar Award
  (1998)
• Beckman Young Investigator
  (1997)
• Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)
  (1997)
• Winston Churchill Scholar
  (1987)