Andrew Kennard

@askennard.bsky.social

340 Followers 501 Following

Postdoc at UMass Amherst (Fritz-Laylin lab). Cell biologist and biophysicist studying evolutionary cell biology of the microtubule cytoskeleton. PhD Stanford (Biophysics, Julie Theriot lab). https://andrewkennard.github.io

Marketing photo of an overhead storage rack for a minivan.
Pan across Main St Northampton, Massachusetts from Pulaski Park. Sunny fall day, lots of people dancing and standing in the street. Live music in the background. No Kings protest.
Screenshot of figure from a preprint. Expansion microscopy of tubulin in a chytrid fungus across the fungal lifecycle.
Still images organized similar to the movie above, with lattice-facing and lumen-facing views of alpha-beta tubulin with residues color-coded by conservation in grayscale (dark = low conservation, white=high conservation). A gray scalebar is shown at the top to indicate the magnitude of the conservation scores. Conservation is calculated based on species without flagella.
Video with no sound showing two side-by-side structures of alpha-beta tubulin heterodimers. Conservation is shown in gray
Venn diagram depicted as a horizontal bar with different colors, representing the number of microtubule regulators that are upregulated in differentiation (flagellate-specific), mitosis, both, or neither. 169 microtubule network components are represented with this visualization. At left in blue is a bar representing the 75 differentiation specific components. Next to that is a beige bar representing the 41 components upregulated in differentiation and mitosis. To the right of that is an orange bar representing the 28 mitosis-specific components. On the far right is a white bar representing the 25 components not upregulated in either process. The numbers for each bar are displayed on the bar, and the widths of each colored bar are proportional to each number.
3x3 grid of immunofluorescence images depicting Naegleria gruberi amoebae and flagellates stained with different anti-tubulin antibodies. The left column shows a flagellate cell, the middle column shows a dividing amoeba, and the right column shows an interphase amoeba. Each row shows the single-channel staining or the merge. Top row is in a blue color scheme and shows the staining using a flagellate beta-tubulin specific antibody. This labels the flagella (left column) but not the amoeba (center/right columns). Middle row in orange color scheme shows the staining with a mitotic alpha-tubulin specific antibody, which labels the mitotic spindle in the dividing amoeba but no structures in the interphase amoeba or flagellate. Bottom row shows the merged view with actin staining added on in a gray color scheme to show the outline of the cell. The scale bar is 10µm, which is about half the length of each image.
Microscopy image (taken with DIC aka Differential Interference Contrast microscopy) of six Naegleria gruberi amoebae. Gray background, and amoebae appear to be illuminated from the bottom with a shadow characteristic of DIC contrast. Cells are crawling and have numerous circular inclusions which are likely macropinosomes.
Matrix of color-coded squares representing the number of microtubule regulators in each of ~60 categories that were found in the genomes of 20 model organisms. Rows indicate different regulators, and columns indicate species. Colors range from white (none found) to blue/purple to black (>6 found). Some regulators are found in all species (e.g. tubulins, plus-tip proteins such as EB1, while some are found in fewer species (e.g. Doublecortin or CEP135/BLD10). Regulators are grouped into logical categories: Tubulins and nucleators; regulators of microtubule dynamics; and promoters of higher-order function. On the top of the matrix is a cladogram depicting the relationship between the 20 species (which are indicated by a 2-letter genus-species abbreviation). See Figure 1 of the original paper.
DIC microscopy image of six Naegleria gruberi amoebae crawling on glass. Image taken by Emily Larkin