Fungal Genomics & Biology
Open Access

Pamela A. Marshall

Biography

Pamela A. Marshall, Ph.D., was born and raised in Denton, TX. Her father is a chemistry professor, and in her youth, she and her brother participated in many types of exothermic reactions. She remembers distinctly learning about the process of DNA replication, transcription, and translation in 10th grade biology. This was a transformative moment in her life as as she decided that genetics and cell biology were extremely elegant and that was what she wanted to study when she grew up. Subsequently, she attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, majoring in Biological Sciences, and minoring in Chemistry and Women's Studies. She was very interested in cellular processes and attended the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, TX, studying the yeast peroxisome in the lab of Joel M. Goodman, earning her Ph.D. in Cell Regulation. At UT Southwestern, she won the Ida M. Green Award for outstanding service to the graduate school community. She performed postdoctoral research in the Biochemistry Department at UT Southwestern, as well, in the lab of Bruce Horazdovsky researching the yeast vacuole.

Research Interest

Dr. Marshall's focuses on the biogenesis and functions of the vacuole of the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The yeast vacuole is roughly equivalent to the mammalian lysosome in that it has degradative, recycling, and storage functions. There are many human disorders in which lysosomal function is impaired, including Tay-Sachs disease, Krabbe disease, certain forms or cancer, and some types of coronary artery disease. Creating a lysosome and filling it with proteins is a very complex process. Because of this complexity, it is difficult to study lysosome formation in human cells. Therefore, the Marshall lab has chosen the yeast vacuole as a model organism in which to study cellular responses. S. cerevisiae has been shown to be a very effective model system for lysosomal function and biogenesis. The Marshall lab has been focusing on four main areas: vacuolar protein trafficking in general, volutin granule formation, mathematical modeling of calcium homeostasis and gene networks, and microarray analysis of yeast with chronic losses of vacuolar function. All of the research in the Marshall laboratory is performed with undergraduates. Trained in a Pharmacology Department for her dissertation, she has always had an interest in therapeutics, rational drug design, and toxicology. She is also part of an interdisciplinary team, with Drs. Carl Wagner and Peter Jurtuka, to synthesize and evaluate novel RXR agonists and antagonists for treatment of cancers and Alzheimer's Disease. Dr. Marshall is interested in science pedagogy, and the way students learn science. She has been designing, implementing, and assessing multi-week lab modules in the West Life Sciences curriculum. She is also interested in learning modalities and science education as well as compacted versus protracted learning sessions. She has recently begun researching the mastery learning modality of learning and how it can be implemented in a college course. Other curricular items of interest include increasing writing in the sciences, implementing online learning exercises, and integrating science disciplines in learning communities.