Anna Marie Sokac
Program in Cell & Molecular Biology,
Verna & Marrs McLean Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Baylor College of Medicine (BCM)
Anna Marie Sokac is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Dr. Sokac received her undergraduate degree with Honors from Carnegie Mellon University. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Wieschaus Lab at Princeton University. She started her independent career at Baylor College of Medicine, where she was promoted to the associate professor level. In 2019, she moved her lab to the University of Illinois.
Dr. Sokac is a cell and developmental biologist. Throughout her career, she has studied how the actin cytoskeleton drives embryonic morphogenesis. Currently, her lab uses the Drosophila embryo to identify mechanisms of actin regulation that impact both the fidelity and stress resistance of morphogenesis.
Cdc42-dependent actin polymerization during compensatory endocytosis in Xenopus eggs.
Nature cell biology Aug, 2003 | Pubmed ID: 12872130
Zygotically controlled F-actin establishes cortical compartments to stabilize furrows during Drosophila cellularization.
Journal of cell science Jun, 2008 | Pubmed ID: 18460582
Local actin-dependent endocytosis is zygotically controlled to initiate Drosophila cellularization.
Developmental cell May, 2008 | Pubmed ID: 18477459
The maternal-to-zygotic transition targets actin to promote robustness during morphogenesis.
PLoS genetics Nov, 2013 | Pubmed ID: 24244181
The plasma membrane flattens out to fuel cell-surface growth during Drosophila cellularization.
Developmental cell Dec, 2013 | Pubmed ID: 24316147
A membrane reservoir at the cell surface: unfolding the plasma membrane to fuel cell shape change.
Bioarchitecture Mar-Apr, 2014 | Pubmed ID: 24844289
Combining protein and mRNA quantification to decipher transcriptional regulation.
Nature methods Aug, 2015 | Pubmed ID: 26098021
Membrane Supply and Demand Regulates F-Actin in a Cell Surface Reservoir.
Developmental cell 05, 2016 | Pubmed ID: 27165556
Stochastic Kinetics of Nascent RNA.
Physical review letters Sep, 2016 | Pubmed ID: 27667861
-Back-to-back mechanisms drive actomyosin ring closure during Drosophila embryo cleavage.
The Journal of cell biology Nov, 2016 | Pubmed ID: 27799369
Seeing a Coastline Paradox in Membrane Reservoirs.
Developmental cell 12, 2017 | Pubmed ID: 29207254
Cofilin-Mediated Actin Stress Response Is Maladaptive in Heat-Stressed Embryos.
Cell reports 03, 2019 | Pubmed ID: 30917306
Mechanical Networks Have Robustness Built into Their Topology, Too.
Developmental cell 09, 2019 | Pubmed ID: 31505172
Imaging Intranuclear Actin Rods in Live Heat Stressed Drosophila Embryos
1Integrative Molecular and Biomedical Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine,
2Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, School of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
3Verna and Marrs McLean Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine