Edward Owusu-Ansah was recently recruited as an Assistant Professor of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He has spent the past ten years using Drosophila genetics to study how mitochondrial function affects both cellular and organismal physiology. Edward’s lab currently studies the signaling mechanisms by which muscles respond and adapt to mitochondrial injury, and how this can be exploited for therapeutic purposes.

Edward received his undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of Ghana, where he graduated with first class honors. He then received his Ph.D. in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, at UCLA under the mentorship of Dr. Utpal Banerjee, the chair of the department, renowned for his discovery of Sos (Son of sevenless). He spent the next five years pursuing his postdoctoral studies in the Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, working with Dr. Norbert Perrimon, an HHMI investigator, who pioneered many of the techniques involved in genome-wide siRNA screens. Edward has received multiple awards in recognition of his accomplishments including the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) career development grant, the Charles King Trust Fellowship, the Ruth l. Kirschstein National Research Service Award, and the Eiserling and Lengyel Fellowship, awarded to one outstanding graduate student in the Life Sciences at UCLA.