Zachary Perlman I'm primarily interested in understanding the balance of forces which gives rise to the characteristic shape and function of the spindle. I've been working on the development of a number of approaches using pharmacological perturbation and digital image processing to further our understanding of this system. There are three primary components to my work: 1)Thomas Mayer and I have developed high-throughput image-based screens (propaganda) for small molecule inhibitors of centrosome duplication and of spindle motor activities, and we're working to follow a number of leads from these assays. In a collaboration with the Altschuler/Wu lab arising from this work, I've been heavily involved in developing techniques to convert high throughput microscopy images into '-omics' data for drug profiling. 2)With Kendra Burbank and David Miyamoto, I am developing methods for the analysis of fluorescent speckle microscopy movies of microtubule flux in Xenopus extract spindles. 3)I'm collaborating with Megan Valentine in an investigation of the rheological properies of Xenopus extract and in vitro-assembled spindles.

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Publications Burbank KS, Groen AC, Perlman ZE, Fisher DS, Mitchison TJ. A new method reveals microtubule minus ends throughout the meiotic spindle. J Cell Biol. 2006 Nov 6;175(3):369-75. PubMed Perlman ZE, Bock JE, Peterson JR, Lokey RS. Geometric diversity through permutation of backbone configuration in cyclic peptide libraries. Bioorg Med Chem Lett. 2005 Dec 1;15(23):5329-34. Epub 2005 Oct 6. PubMed Miyamoto DT, Perlman ZE, Burbank KS, Groen AC, Mitchison TJ. The kinesin Eg5 drives poleward microtubule flux in Xenopus laevis egg extract spindles. J Cell Biol. 2004 Dec 6;167(5):813-8. PubMed Perlman ZE, Mitchison TJ, Mayer TU. High-content screening and profiling of drug activity in an automated centrosome-duplication assay. Chembiochem. 2005 Jan;6(1):145-51. PubMed Eggert US, Kiger AA, Richter C, Perlman ZE, Perrimon N, Mitchison TJ, Field CM. Parallel chemical genetic and genome-wide RNAi screens identify cytokinesis inhibitors and targets. PLoS Biol. 2004 Dec;2(12):e379. Epub 2004 Oct 5. PubMed Perlman ZE, Slack MD, Feng Y, Mitchison TJ, Wu LF, Altschuler SJ. Multidimensional drug profiling by automated microscopy. Science. 2004 Nov 12;306(5699):1194-8. PubMed Shirasu-Hiza M, Perlman ZE, Wittmann T, Karsenti E, Mitchison TJ. Eg5 causes elongation of meiotic spindles when flux-associated microtubule depolymerization is blocked. Curr Biol. 2004 Nov 9;14(21):1941-5. PubMed Full Text Valentine MT, Perlman ZE, Mitchison TJ, Weitz DA. Mechanical properties of Xenopus egg cytoplasmic extracts. Biophys J. 2005 Jan;88(1):680-9. Epub 2004 Oct 22. PubMed Yarrow JC, Perlman ZE, Westwood NJ, Mitchison TJ. A high-throughput cell migration assay using scratch wound healing, a comparison of image-based readout methods. BMC Biotechnol. 2004 Sep 9;4:21. PubMed Valentine MT, Perlman ZE, Gardel ML, Shin JH, Matsudaira P, Mitchison TJ, Weitz DA. Colloid surface chemistry critically affects multiple particle tracking measurements of biomaterials. Biophys J. 2004 Jun;86(6):4004-14. PubMed Miyamoto DT, Perlman ZE, Mitchison TJ, Shirasu-Hiza M. Dynamics of the mitotic spindle--potential therapeutic targets. Prog Cell Cycle Res. 2003;5:349-60. PubMed Yarrow JC, Feng Y, Perlman ZE, Kirchhausen T, Mitchison TJ. Phenotypic screening of small molecule libraries by high throughput cell imaging. Comb Chem High Throughput Screen. 2003 Jun;6(4):279-86. PubMed