Yukiko Yamashita: The centrosomes get there first

JCB • VOLUME 201 • NUMBER 6 • 2013 782 T he asymmetric division of stem cells gives rise to two daughter cells with different fates: one that retains stem cell identity and another that is destined to follow a particular developmental path. To guide the differential distribution of cell components, asymmetric division relies on the specifi c orientation of the dividing cell’s microtubule-based spindle apparatus. How this event occurs, and how it impacts stem cell behavior, are questions that fascinate Yukiko Yamashita, professor of cell and developmental biology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of Michigan. Yamashita has always enjoyed observing nature in action—fi rst in her mother’s garden and later through a microscope while studying cell biology at Kyoto University (1, 2). She put her observational skills to good use as a postdoc in Margaret Fuller’s lab at Stanford, where she showed that, in Drosophila germline stem cells, spindle orientation is determined even before the spindle forms via precise placement of the centrosomes that will later anchor the opposing poles of the spindle apparatus (3). She’s since devoted her career to studying the signifi cance (4, 5) and regulation of this phenomenon (6). We called her to learn more about it and to hear how her career has grown.