Current members of the research group
PLANT MITOCHONDRIAL DYNAMICS
Amr El Zawily MSc.
I have received my first and second Bachelors degrees (with honours) in 2001 and 2006 respectively and during that time I was selected for a faculty member position in the College of Sciences, Alexandria University, Damanhour branch, since 2003 until present. I was awarded a scholarship from Ohio University, USA, in 2007, to obtain my Master’s degree and I am currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Biology Department, University of Saskatchewan. I like listening to music while working.
My research
Plant mitochondrial dysfunction causes male sterility and defects in carbon metabolism and intracellular signaling, while in humans mitochondrial dysfunction is implicated in diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, Parkinson’s and many additional neurological and neuromuscular diseases. In addition, mitochondria in plants and animals are intimately involved in programmed cell death. We are using a molecular cell biological approach to increase our knowledge of the link between mitochondrial dynamics, cell function and cell death. Plant mitochondria typically exist as single, discrete, spherical to tubular-shaped organelles distributed randomly in the cytosol. However, the friendly mitochondria mutant of Arabidopsis contains clusters of tens of mitochondria in contrast to the wild type random distribution. A recent study identified the Drosophila homologue of FRIENDLY, named clueless, as being involved in a mitochondrial quality control pathway along with two additional proteins PINK1 and Parkin which have been shown to be involved in familial forms of Parkinson’s disease. Our goal is to investigate the role of FRIENDLY in this conserved mitochondrial quality control pathway and to determine both plant specific and conserved proteins interacting with FRIENDLY in vivo.
friendly - arrow highlights large cluster of mitochondria.
Image by Amr El Zawily
