Laura Anne Lowery, PhD
Associate Professor
Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
Medicine
Hematology & Medical Oncology

PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MS, University of California, San Diego
BS, University of California, San Diego

Pronouns: she/her/hers



Professor Laura Lowery discovered her love of academia and biomedical research while an undergrad at the University of California, San Diego. In the lab of Dr. Bill Schafer, she studied the neural circuitry underlying worm egg-laying behavior. In 2008, Prof Lowery received her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, working in the lab of Dr. Hazel Sive at the Whitehead Institute, where she pioneered research studying early brain ventricle morphogenesis. Prof Lowery then did post-doctoral research in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School, in the labs of Dr. David Van Vactor and Dr. Gaudenz Danuser, where she became fascinated by the inner workings of the neuronal growth cone and axon guidance. She began as an Assistant Professor at Boston College in 2014, she was promoted to Associate Professor in 2018, and she moved to Boston University Medical Center in 2020.

Prof. Lowery leads a comprehensive, multi-faceted research program that investigates how cytoskeletal dynamics are regulated to drive cell motility in both normal and pathological conditions. Her lab uses this research focus as a platform to further the understanding of the cell biological defects that underlie neurodevelopmental disorders, various developmental disorders affecting other organ systems, as well as cancer metastasis, using Xenopus laevis as a model system. Her long-term goal is to continue to expand on this work, as well as collaborate with other cell and developmental biologists to elucidate mechanisms underlying complex cell biological processes.

The lab currently consists of one postdoctoral associate, one research technician, and several undergraduate students. We are a group of enthusiastic and motivated researchers excited about making a positive difference in the world. The lab's research has been funded by multiple external grants from the NIH, NSF, American Cancer Society, the Ellison Foundation, and the March of Dimes foundation. Please check out the lab's website (lowerylab.org) for more information.

Prof Lowery also serves as the Associate Chief for Faculty Affairs for the Section of Hematology and Medical Oncology.

In addition to her research interests, Prof Lowery is involved in service related to promoting anti-racism in the BU community. She is the Director of Diversity Equity and Inclusion for the Hem Onc Section, Chair of the Section Anti-Racism Steering Committee, the Hem Onc representative to the Racial Equity Champions Committee for BUMG, and a trained facilitator for the LIFT microaggression bystander training workshop. She was also a participant in the BU Mid-Career Faculty Leadership Program 2022-2023.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility

I am deeply committed to promoting diversity and inclusion in academia and medicine, and this commitment stems from my careful attention to others’ experiences as well as my underlying life’s mission to promote a positive and supportive environment for everyone that I work with to achieve their full potential. Since I became a professor in 2014, I have been actively engaged in mentoring students from underrepresented backgrounds to succeed in academia and medicine, and I have participated as a faculty mentor in a number of federally-funded programs (TRIO McNairs Program, NIH-funded BU STaRS Program, NSF REU program for URMs, NIH Diversity supplements, Gateway Program). Moreover, during 2020, I read the book “How to be an anti-racist,” by BU faculty member Ibram X Kendi, and I realized then how critical it is for me to use my white privilege and power and voice to be actively anti-racist in my work environment. Thus, I became Chair of the Anti-Racism Committee in my Section and I have been very active in diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at BU. In all of my communities, I aim to create a safe space for all members to learn, grow, and succeed in their life goals. I welcome and celebrate individuals of all races, ethnicities, social backgrounds, religion, gender, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, and national origin.


Institutional Roles and Activities Promoting Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility

02/2022-present - Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Department of Medicine Hem Onc

10/2021-present - CORE (Commitment to Operationalize Racial Equity) Pilot Group, Office of Equity Vitality and Inclusion, BUMG

12/2020-present - Chair, Anti-Racism Steering Committee, Department of Medicine - Hem Onc - Highlighted in HealthCity article
https://healthcity.bmc.org/policy-and-industry/anti-racism-committee-works-improve-cancer-care-and-research

12/2020-present - Member, Racial Equity Champions Committee, BU Medical Group

09/2020-05/2021 - Participant, Women’s Leadership Program, BU - 9-month longitudinal leadership and career development program for women faculty members

03/2021 - Participant, Equity Vitality Inclusion Racial Equity Focus Group, BU Medical Group

12/2020-present - Facilitator, LIFT Bystander Training for Microaggressions Workshop - trained how to lead one hour workshop with vignettes to teach faculty how to recognize and implement strategies to respectfully and effectively intervene when observing microaggressions

Presentations Led

LIFT Bystander Training for Microaggressions Workshops
- Dec 12, 2020 - BU Center for Regenerative Medicine Faculty
- March 4, 2021 - BUSM - Department of Medicine - Hem Onc Faculty and Staff
- May 25, 2021 - BUSM - Department of Medicine - Hem Onc Clinic Nurses
- July 9, 2021 - BUSM - Department of Medicine - Hem Onc Clinic Nurses
- Dec 20, 2021 - BU Dental School Faculty
- Jan 31, 2022 - MS Oral Sciences Program Students
- March 10, 2022 - BUSM - Department of Medicine - Hem Onc Faculty

Mini-Presentations Led at Department of Medicine Hem Onc Section Meetings
- May 6, 2021 - The importance of confronting racism
- Nov 18, 2021 - Book review on The Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
- Feb 4, 2022 - How to be an ally

02/2021-present - Monthly Racial Equity Updates at Department of Medicine Hem Onc Section Meetings

01/2022 - Presenter, Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council, on Hem Onc Anti-Racism Committee

Mentoring

Summer 2020, 2021 - Faculty Mentor to undergraduate students in BU STaRS program (NIH-funded program to promote more equitable access to graduate education for students historically underrepresented in science and medicine)

2017-2019 - Faculty Mentor to undergraduate students in McNairs Scholars Program (federally-funded TRIO program to support URG students), Boston College



Elucidating mechanistic connections between guidance signaling, microtubule regulation, and growth cone steering
01/13/2022 - 11/30/2026 (PI)
National Institute of Mental Health/NIH/DHHS
2R01MH109651-06A1

Elucidating mechanistic connections between guidance signaling, microtubule regulation, and growth cone steering
02/01/2020 - 12/31/2021 (PI)
National Institute of Mental Health/NIH/DHHS
7R01MH109651-05

Exploring the mechanism by which TACC proteins promote cell motility
01/01/2020 - 06/30/2021 (PI)
American Cancer Society


Title


Yr Title Project-Sub Proj Pubs
2024 Elucidating mechanistic connections between guidance signaling, microtubule regulation, and growth cone steering 5R01MH109651-08
2023 Elucidating mechanistic connections between guidance signaling, microtubule regulation, and growth cone steering 5R01MH109651-07
2022 Elucidating mechanistic connections between guidance signaling, microtubule regulation, and growth cone steering 2R01MH109651-06A1
2020 Elucidating mechanistic connections between guidance signaling, microtubule regulation, and growth cone steering 7R01MH109651-05 9
2019 Elucidating mechanistic connections between guidance signaling, microtubule regulation, and growth cone steering 5R01MH109651-04 9
2018 Elucidating mechanistic connections between guidance signaling, microtubule regulation, and growth cone steering: Diversity Supplement 3R01MH109651-03S1 9
2018 Elucidating mechanistic connections between guidance signaling, microtubule regulation, and growth cone steering 5R01MH109651-03 9
2017 Elucidating mechanistic connections between guidance signaling, microtubule regulation, and growth cone steering 5R01MH109651-02 9
2017 Role of TACC3 in Cranial Neural Crest Cell Migration:Implications for Craniofacial Disorders 5R03DE025824-02 5
2016 Elucidating mechanistic connections between guidance signaling, microtubule regulation, and growth cone steering 1R01MH109651-01 9
Showing 10 of 22 results. Show All Results

Publications listed below are automatically derived from MEDLINE/PubMed and other sources, which might result in incorrect or missing publications. Faculty can login to make corrections and additions.

iCite Analysis       Copy PMIDs To Clipboard

  1. Sabo J, Dujava Zdimalova M, Slater PG, Dostal V, Herynek S, Libusova L, Lowery LA, Braun M, Lansky Z. CKAP5 enables formation of persistent actin bundles templated by dynamically instable microtubules. Curr Biol. 2024 Jan 22; 34(2):260-272.e7. PMID: 38086388; PMCID: PMC10841699; DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.11.031;
     
  2. Hutchison A, Sibanda C, Hulme M, Anwar S, Gur B, Thomas R, Lowery LA. Re-examining the evidence that ivermectin induces a melanoma-like state in Xenopus embryos. Bioessays. 2024 Jan; 46(1):e2300143. PMID: 37985957; PMCID: PMC10841629; DOI: 10.1002/bies.202300143;
     
  3. Davidson LA, Lowery LA. Imaging Methods in Xenopus Cells, Embryos, and Tadpoles. Cold Spring Harb Protoc. 2022 Jun 07; 2022(5):pdb.top105627. PMID: 34244350; PMCID: PMC9476831; DOI: 10.1101/pdb.top105627;
     
  4. Lasser M, Bolduc J, Murphy L, O'Brien C, Lee S, Girirajan S, Lowery LA. 16p12.1 Deletion Orthologs are Expressed in Motile Neural Crest Cells and are Important for Regulating Craniofacial Development in Xenopus laevis. Front Genet. 2022; 13:833083. PMID: 35401697; PMCID: PMC8987115; DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2022.833083;
     
  5. Hahn I, Voelzmann A, Parkin J, Fülle JB, Slater PG, Lowery LA, Sanchez-Soriano N, Prokop A. Tau, XMAP215/Msps and Eb1 co-operate interdependently to regulate microtubule polymerisation and bundle formation in axons. PLoS Genet. 2021 07; 17(7):e1009647. PMID: 34228717; PMCID: PMC8284659; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009647;
     
  6. Pizzo L, Lasser M, Yusuff T, Jensen M, Ingraham P, Huber E, Singh MD, Monahan C, Iyer J, Desai I, Karthikeyan S, Gould DJ, Yennawar S, Weiner AT, Pounraja VK, Krishnan A, Rolls MM, Lowery LA, Girirajan S. Functional assessment of the "two-hit" model for neurodevelopmental defects in Drosophila and X. laevis. PLoS Genet. 2021 04; 17(4):e1009112. PMID: 33819264; PMCID: PMC8049494; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009112;
     
  7. Erdogan B, Bearce EA, Lowery LA. Live Imaging of Cytoskeletal Dynamics in Embryonic Xenopus laevis Growth Cones and Neural Crest Cells. Cold Spring Harb Protoc. 2021 04 01; 2021(4). PMID: 33272974; PMCID: PMC8026486; DOI: 10.1101/pdb.prot104463;
     
  8. Mills A, Bearce E, Cella R, Kim SW, Selig M, Lee S, Lowery LA. Corrigendum: Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome-Associated Genes Are Enriched in Motile Neural Crest Cells and Affect Craniofacial Development in Xenopus laevis. Front Physiol. 2020; 11:644596. PMID: 33664672; PMCID: PMC7924074; DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2020.644596;
     
  9. Erdogan B, St Clair RM, Cammarata GM, Zaccaro T, Ballif BA, Lowery LA. Investigating the impact of the phosphorylation status of tyrosine residues within the TACC domain of TACC3 on microtubule behavior during axon growth and guidance. Cytoskeleton (Hoboken). 2020 07; 77(7):277-291. PMID: 32543081; PMCID: PMC7731983; DOI: 10.1002/cm.21622;
     
  10. Ori-McKenney K, Lowery LA. Regulation of cytoskeletal dynamics and transport. Mol Biol Cell. 2020 03 15; 31(6):406. PMID: 32163351; PMCID: PMC7185898; DOI: 10.1091/mbc.E20-01-0065;
     
Showing 10 of 46 results. Show More

This graph shows the total number of publications by year, by first, middle/unknown, or last author.

Bar chart showing 46 publications over 20 distinct years, with a maximum of 6 publications in 2016

YearPublications
20001
20011
20041
20051
20071
20081
20093
20101
20122
20132
20144
20153
20166
20172
20181
20195
20203
20214
20222
20232


Striving for Culturally Sensitive Care

ASH Clinical News 1/1/2023

Anti-Racism Committee Works to Improve Cancer Care and Research

HealthCity 3/17/2022

2018 Charles H. Hood Foundation Bridge Funding Award
2017 Boston College “Ever to Excel” Reverend John R Trzaska SJ Award
2016 American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award
2016 March of Dimes Research Award
2013 North East Society of Developmental Biology Poster Presentation Award
2012 Growth Cones and Axon Regeneration RegenBase Oral Presentation Award
2012 Growth Cones and Axon Regeneration RegenBase Travel Award
2012 North East Society of Developmental Biology Best Oral Presentation Award
2012 NIH K99 Pathway to Independence Award
2011 North East Society of Developmental Biology Best Oral Presentation Award
2008 NIH/NINDS Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Post-doctoral Fellowship
2005 Developmental Biology Gordon Conference Poster Award
2005 NIH/NIMH Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Pre-doctoral Fellowship
2004 Abraham J. Siegel Fellowship, Whitehead Institute
2004 North East Society of Developmental Biology Poster Award
2000 Revelle College Outstanding Academic and Leadership Excellence Award, UC San Diego
In addition to these self-described keywords below, a list of MeSH based concepts is available here.

Cell Migration
Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Cancer Metastasis
Cytoskeletal Dynamics
Embryonic Development
Xenopus laevis
Developmental Biology

Mentoring is one of the most important and influential roles that I have as a professor, and it is an endeavor that I highly value. In addition to providing intensive mentoring for personnel in my lab, I am also available for mentoring in areas such as being a woman in science, balancing academia and family life, and teaching.

Research in my lab is extremely collaborative, with everyone being expected to work together and promote each other's success as a team, even when working on individual research projects. This collaborative focus has been very successful for my lab, and the majority of my lab members have been co-authors on publications from their research. Since my lab began in 2014, I have mentored two postdoctoral fellows, four PhD graduate students, and over forty undergraduate students. My trainees have received numerous talk and poster presentation awards at conferences. My undergraduate students have gone on to top medical and graduate schools in the country (MIT, Columbia, UCLA, University of Pittsburgh, and many more). Thus far, two of my PhD students have graduated, and they are currently doing postdoctoral research at Harvard University and University of Oregon.

In the past, I have obtained both governmental and foundation grants for training undergraduate students (from NSF and Beckman Foundation). I have been on many thesis defense committees in the Boston area. I have also been an invited speaker at many university leadership events and conferences.

Mentoring has been and will continue to be a major focus of my life and career mission. In 2016, several lab members made a video to highlight my focus on mentoring in my lab: https://vimeo.com/194616402

Available to Mentor as: (Review Mentor Role Definitions):
  • Advisor
  • Career Mentor
  • Co-Mentor or Peer Mentor
  • Diversity Mentor
  • Education Mentor
  • Project Mentor
  • Research / Scholarly Mentor
  • Work / Life Integration Mentor
Contact for Mentoring:
  • Email (see 'Contact Info')

650 Albany Street
Boston MA 02118
Google Map

617.638.7518
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