Gillespie Lab: Members
The Gillespie Lab currently has 11 lab members. If you are interested in joining the lab, please contact Peter Gillespie at the address listed on the lab home page.
- PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Peter Gillespie
- POSTDOCS: Rachel Dumont, Tao Lu, Clive Morgan, Jung-Bum Shin
- GRADUATE STUDENTS: Kate Saylor, Kateri Spinelli, Hongyu Zhao
- SUPPORT STAFF: Michael Bateschell, Jim Pagana, Barb Rainish
Principal Investigator
Peter Gillespie (gillespp@ohsu.edu)
After undergraduate studies at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, Peter G. Gillespie attended graduate school at the University of Washington, where he received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology in 1988. He spent five years as a postdoc with Jim Hudspeth, first at the University of California, San Francisco, then at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He joined the Department of Physiology at Johns Hopkins University as an Assistant Professor in 1993 and rose to Associate Professor in 1998. In 1999 he joined the Oregon Hearing Research Center as an Associate Professor and the Vollum Institute as an Affiliated Scientist. He was promoted to Professor in 2004 and granted tenure in 2007.
Postdocs
Rachel Dumont (dumontr@ohsu.edu)
After earning her B.S. from McGill University, Rachel Dumont joined the Gillespie laboratory (as Peter Gillespie's first Ph.D. student) at Johns Hopkins University. Although she moved with the Gillespie lab to OHSU in Portland in 1999, she earned her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins in 2001 for her work on the hair-bundle calcium pump. She next joined Richard Walker's laboratory, also at OHSU, to study the molecular basis of mechanotransduction in Drosophila. Most recently, she has moved back to the Gillespie laboratory, where she applies her expertise in biochemistry and molecular biology to problems in hair-bundle function.
Tao Lu (lut@ohsu.edu)
Tao Lu earned a B.S. degree in Human Physiology from Beijing University, China, in 1991. He obtained a Ph.D. from the Shanghai Institute of Physiology, China, in 1996. Since 1997, he has carried out postdoctoral work in the Oregon Hearing Research Center, OHSU. From 1997–2007, he worked with Larry Trussell to characterize synaptic signaling in the auditory brainstem. From 2007–2009, he carried out research in the laboratory of Richard Walker, characterizing mechanotransduction in fly bristle organs.
Tao joined the Gillespie lab in 2009; his project is to characterize mechanotransduction properties of cochlear hair cells, with a focus on measuring transduction in mouse lines with targeted mutations.
Clive Paul Morgan (morgacli@ohsu.edu)
After receiving a B.Sc. (Hons) in Biochemistry from the University of York in 1994, Clive earned his Ph.D. in 1998 from University College London. As a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow University College London, Clive investigated the role of lipid binding proteins in cell signalling from 1998 through 2005.
In the Gillespie Lab since 2006, Clive is combining his expertise in lipid biochemistry with the Gillespie Lab's strength in hair bundle characterization to study the localization and function of the major and minor phospholipids in the inner ear and their interaction with other bundle components.
Jung-Bum Shin (shinj@ohsu.edu)
Jung-Bum Shin graduated with a degree in Biochemistry from the University of Tuebingen, Germany, in 1998. He then carried out graduate research in the laboratory of Gary Lewin, Neuroscience Department of the Max-Delbrueck-Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, Germany, where he was awarded his PhD in Biology with summa cum laude.
Since 2003, he has worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Gillespie laboratory, where he carried out the first proteomics screens identifying the major proteins of the hair bundle by mass spectrometry.
Graduate Students
Kate Saylor (saylork@ohsu.edu)
Kate Saylor graduated with a B.A. in biology/neurobiology from Macalester College in 2005. While a student at Macalester, she spent a summer studying a deaf mouse mutant in Ken Johnson's lab at The Jackson Laboratory. After graduating, she worked as a post-baccalaureate research fellow in Matt Kelley's lab at the NIDCD/NIH. There she studied supernumerary and ectopic hair cells in the developing mouse cochlea.
In 2006, Kate started her graduate studies in the Neuroscience Graduate Program at OHSU and subsequently joined the Gillespie lab. She is working on cytoskeletal proteins in the stereocilia.
Kateri Spinelli (spinelli@ohsu.edu)
After earning her B.A. in Neuroscience from Hamilton College, Kateri Spinelli worked for several years as a research technician. Joining the Neuroscience Graduate Program at OHSU in 2005, she joined the Gillespie laboratory in the summer of 2006. In the summer of 2007, Kateri attended the Marine Biological Laboratories course "Neurobiology" at Woods Hole. Kateri is studying the mechanism of tip link regeneration in hair cells.
Hongyu Zhao (zhaoh@ohsu.edu)
Hongyu Zhao attended the Ocean University of China, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Ecology and Marine Biology in 1994. In 1997, he was awarded a Master of Science degree in Biochemistry and Biophysics at Oregon State University. After working as a research assistant or associate in several laboratories at OHSU, he joined the Neuroscience Graduate Program in 2007.
Hongyu is characterizing the molecular interactions of proteins that make up the transduction apparatus in hair cells.
Support Staff
Michael Bateschell – Research Assistant II, OHRC Mouse Core (batesche@ohsu.edu)
Michael Bateschell earned a B.S. in Biology from Oregon State University in 1998, then carried out graduate research in Biology at Eastern Washington University from 1998–2005. He was awarded his M.S. in 2007. He joined the Gillespie lab in 2005 and has been responsible for maintenance of mouse lines for the OHRC in his role as the primary scientist of the OHRC Mouse Core.
Jim Pagana – Research Assistant II, Proteomics (paganaj@ohsu.edu)
Jim Pagana attended Drexel University, where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Science in 2006. Since then, he has worked in the Gillespie laboratory, where he purifies hair bundles and characterizes the proteins present in the bundle prep.
Barb Rainish – Lab Manager (rainishb@ohsu.edu)
Barb Rainish earned a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1989, then was granted an M.S. in Biochemistry in 1992 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has worked at OHSU since 1997, joining the Gillespie lab in 2007.
View all of Barb Rainish's publications on PubMed
