Angelika Amon: Conquering the divide

M itosis is a fantastically complex process, but the simple beauty of chromosome segregation can captivate even the untrained eye. When Angelika Amon saw a video of a dividing cell as a schoolgirl in Austria, it set her on a path to a professorship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, where she continues to investigate chromosome segregation and the consequences of mitotic errors. Amon began her research career as a PhD student with Kim Nasmyth at the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, studying how cyclin levels are controlled over the course of the budding yeast cell cycle (1). After a brief postdoc with Ruth Lehmann at the Whitehead Institute in Cam-bridge, MA, Amon was offered the chance to start her own lab at the institute as a Whitehead fellow. She returned to studying the yeast cell cycle, identifying some of the key proteins that trigger cyclin degradation and mitotic exit (2, 3). Since joining the MIT faculty, Amon has continued to investigate how one of these proteins—Cdc14— is regulated (4, 5), while also studying how the basic mi-totic machinery is adapted for the two sequential divisions of meiosis (6). More recently, Amon has turned her attention to the consequences of aneu-ploidy—abnormal numbers of chromosomes due to segregation defects—and its potential links to tumorigenesis (7, 8). In a recent interview, we spoke with Amon about her passion for cell division and where her research is heading next. Where did you grow up? I grew up in Vienna, Austria. I was always interested in science—I wanted to study dinosaurs when I started school, and then I wanted to be a zoologist for a long time. But when I was in high school, I saw some old chromosome segregation movies— black and white ones from the '50s. I thought it was the coolest thing ever, and I still do. Seeing the sister chromatids split takes your breath away. Most people have the same reaction. I now go to my children's schools to talk about being a scientist, and I always show them that movie. Even the youngest children appreciate that this is something special. That interest in cell division led to you joining Kim Nasmyth's group for your PhD… Yes, and he was a fantastic teacher. Kim is probably one of the clearest thinkers of our time. Being in his lab was a remarkable experience , and I had …