Mechanosensory Transduction in Drosophila Melanogaster

Xin Liang is a biophysicist. He received his B.S. degree and Ph.D. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2003 and 2007, respectively. He then moved to the Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany for postdoctoral research (Supervisor: Prof. Jonathon Howard). In 2015, he moved back to China and started his own research group at the School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University in Beijing. Currently, his primary research interest is in understanding “how cells sense forces” at both the cell biological and molecular level.  Landi Sun received her Ph.D. from Lanzhou University in 2015. Soon after, she began her postdoctoral research at Tsinghua University. She is currently investigating the structural-mechanical basis of mechanotransduction in Drosophila melanogaster. Zhen Liu graduated from Tsinghua University in 2015 (B.S.), where he is now a graduate student. His current focus is on understanding how different mechanoreceptors differentiate between different mechanical stimuli.

• Overview of Mechanosensory Transduction.- “Gating-Spring” Model for Mechanotransduction.- Mechanoreceptors in Drosophila melanogaster.- Mechanotransduction in Drosophila mechanoreceptors.- Drosophila Mechanotransduction Channels.