Dr. Wade Sugden

I studied at the University of Oregon and got my Bachelor’s degree in Biology in 2011, with an emphasis on Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. During my studies, I had the opportunity to work as a student research assistant in the lab of Prof. Dr. Charles Kimmel.  The lab focused on craniofacial development, using zebrafish as a model organism. I worked on generating transgenic zebrafish to drive expression of genes of interest in early neural crest cells and differentiated chondrocytes that form the craniofacial skeleton. This was my first exposure to vertebrate development, and the power of zebrafish in particular as a model: visually tracking cells at all stages of development and manipulating them is exceptionally easy in these embryos. I decided I wanted to gain more research experience and keep studying developmental biology, but in the context of a new organ system: the vasculature. Angiogenesis is a highly dynamic process which depends on physiological parameters like blood flow and hypoxia. I knew zebrafish researchers had already been making major contributions to the field, and I started looking abroad for angiogenesis labs. I joined Dr. Arndt Siekmann’s group in 2011 to do my PhD, and have been thrilled by the international, creative, thought-provoking environment here at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine. Currently, I am studying the interplay between genetics and blood flow in vascular patterning during development.

In the frame of a pilot project financed by the Cluster of Excellence "Cells-in-Motion", I work together with the Institute of Applied Physics to measure the forces in blood flow and how these affect blood cells and their viscoelasticity.