Lea Marie Alford

Education:
B.A., University of Chicago
Ph.D., Boston College

Honors and Awards:
2022 Lu Thomasson Garrett ’52 Award for Meritorious Teaching
2009 Fellowship in Research and Science Teaching (FIRST), NIH/NIGMS Institutional and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA)

Areas of interest/research:
“My research focuses on ciliary biology using the model genetic system Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Visit our lab website for more info!”

Faculty website:
https://sites.oglethorpe.edu/lalford/

Courses taught:
“I teach at all levels in the Biology Program curriculum, including Biological Inquiry (BIO-110), Biostatistics (BIO-111), Genetics (BIO-201), and advanced electives in cell and molecular biology. I also teach in the Core Program, specifically Science and Human Nature (COR-400).”

Recent publications:

*Undergraduate co-author

Hwang, J., Yanagisawa, H., Davis, K.C., Hunter, E.L., Fox, L.A., *Jimenez, A.R., *Goodwin, R.E., *Gordon, S.A., *Stuart, C.D.E., Bower, R., Porter, M.E., Dutcher, S.K., Sale, W.S., Lechtreck, K.L., and Alford, L.M. Assembly of FAP93 at the proximal axoneme in Chlamydomonas cilia. Manuscript in preparation.

Lechtreck, K., Liu, Y., Dai, J., Alkhofash, R.A., *Butler, J., Alford, L.M., Yang, P. Chlamydomonas ARMC2/PF27 is an obligate cargo adapter for IFT of radial spokes. eLife. 2022 11:e74993 //doi.org/10.7554/eLife.74993

Alford, L.M., Brown, A., Yang, P. The Flagellar Radial Spokes. In: Dutcher, S.K., Goodenough, U., Grossman, A., and Wollman, F.A. The Chlamydomonas Sourcebook Volume 3: Cell Motility and Behavior, 3rd Ed. Invited book chapter in press.

Hunter, E.L, Lechtreck, K., Fu, G., Hwang, J., Lin, H., Gokhale, A., Alford, L.M., Lewis, B., Yamamoto, R., Kamiya, R., Yang, F., Nicastro, N., Dutcher, S.K., Wirschell, M., Sale, W.S. The IDA3 adapter, required for intraflagellar transport of I1 dynein, is regulated by ciliary length. Mol. Biol. Cell. 2018. Apr 15;29(8):886-896 doi: 10.1091/mbc.E17-12-0729 PMID: 29467251.

Yamamoto, R., Obbineni, J.M., Alford, L.M., Ide, T., Owa, M., Hwang, J., Kon, T., Inaba, K., James, N., King, S.M., Ishikawa, T., Sale, W.S., Dutcher, S.K. Chlamydomonas DYX1C1/PF23 is essential for axonemal assembly and proper morphology of inner dynein arms. PLoS Genetics. 2017. Sep 11;13(9):e1006996. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1006996.

Hunter, E.L., Sale, W.S., Alford, L.M. Analysis of axonemal assembly during ciliary regeneration in Chlamydomonas. Methods Mol Biol. 2016;1454:237-43. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-3789-9_15. PMID:27514926

Alford, L.M., Stoddard, D., Li, J.H., Hunter, E.L., Tritschler, D., Bower, R., Nicastro, D., Porter, M.E., Sale, W.S. The nexin link and B-tubule polyglutamylation maintain the alignment of outer doublets in the ciliary axoneme. Cytoskeleton. 2016. Apr 22. doi:10.1002/cm.21301. PMID: 27105591

Vasudevan, K.K., Song, K., Alford, L.M., Sale, W.S., Dymek, E.E., Smith, E.F., Hennessey, T., Joachimiak E., Urbanska, P., Wloga, D., Dentler, W., Nicastro, D., Gaertig, J. FAP206 is a microtubule-docking adapter for ciliary radial spoke 2 and dynein c. Mol Biol Cell. 2015. Feb 15;26(4):696-710. doi: 10.1091/mbc.E14-11-1506. PMID: 25540426

Vasudevan, K.K., Jiang, P.Y., Lechtreck, K.F., Kushida, Y., Alford, L.M., Sale, W.S., Hennessey, T., Gaertig, J. Kinesin-13 regulates the quantity and quality of tubulin inside cilia. Mol Biol Cell. 2015. Feb 1;26(3):478-94. doi: 10.1091/mbc.E14-09-1354. PMID: 25501369

Viswanadha, R., Hunter, E.L., Yamamoto, R., Wirschell, M., Alford, L.M., Sale, W.S. The Ciliary Inner Dynein Arm, I1 assembles in the Cytoplasm Before Transport by IFT for Axonemal Docking. Cytoskeleton. 2014. Oct;71(10):573-86. doi: 10.1002/cm.21192. PMID: 25252184

Alford, L.M., Mattheyses, A.L., Hunter, E.L., Lin, H., Dutcher, S., Sale, W.S. The Chlamydomonas mutant pf27 reveals novel features of ciliary radial spoke assembly. Cytoskeleton. 2013. Dec;70(12):804-18. doi: 10.1002/cm.21144. PMID: 24124175