Janet Iwasa

Janet Iwasa, PhD

Languages spoken: English

Academic Information

Departments Primary - Biochemistry

Lab

Janet Iwasa is an Assistant Professor in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Utah. Her broad goal is to create accurate and compelling molecular and cellular visualizations that will support research, learning and scientific communication. Janet's award-winning illustrations and animations have appeared in scientific journals including Nature, Science and Cell, as well as in the New York Times. Her work has also been featured on television and in museum exhibits. Janet was named a 2014 TED fellow and recognized as one of the "100 Leading Global Thinkers" of 2014 by Foreign Policy magazine and one of the “100 Most Creative People” of 2012 by Fast Company magazine. As a postdoctoral fellow, she created a multimedia exhibit with Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak (Harvard University) and the Museum of Science, Boston, and later worked on biological visualizations as a faculty member at Harvard Medical School. She received her Ph.D. in 2006 from the University of California, San Francisco for her work on the actin cytoskeleton in the laboratory of Dyche Mullins, and completed 3D animation training at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects later that same summer.

Education History

Undergraduate Williams College
 BA
Doctoral Training University of California, San Francisco
 PhD
Postdoctoral Fellowship Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School and Museum of Science
 Postdoctoral Fellow

Selected Publications

Journal Article

  1. Iwasa J (2010). Animating the model figure. Trends in cell biology, 20(12), 699-704.
  2. Iwasa J (2016). The Scientist as Illustrator. Trends in immunology, 37(4), 247-50.
  3. Riggi M, Iwasa J (2023). An educational visual resource to support understanding of liquid-liquid phase separation. Biochemistry and molecular biology education,
  4. Lyall K, Iwasa JH, Goodsell DS, Holt (2023). Communicating science through visual means. Trends in biochemical sciences, 48(1), 2-4.
  5. Imoto Y, Raychaudhuri S, Ma Y, Fenske P, Sandoval E, Itoh K, Blumrich EM, Matsubayashi HT, Mamer L, Zarebidaki F, Söhl-Kielczynski B, Trimbuch T, Nayak S, Iwasa JH, Liu J, Wu B, Ha T, Inoue T, Jorgensen EM, Cousin MA, Rosenmund C, Watanabe (2022). Dynamin is primed at endocytic sites for ultrafast endocytosis. Neuron, 110(17), 2815-2835.e13.
  6. Liu H, Riggi M, Rogers J, Meyer M, Iwasa J (2022). A new tool for annotating scientific animations and supporting scientific dialogue. PLoS biology, 20(8), e3001731.
  7. Iwasa J (2022). Using animation to mediate scientific discourse. Nature microbiology, 7(1), 3.
  8. Nguyen HC, Talledge N, McCullough J, Sharma A, Moss FR 3rd, Iwasa JH, Vershinin MD, Sundquist WI, Frost (2020). Membrane constriction and thinning by sequential ESCRT-III polymerization. Nature structural & molecular biology, 27(4), 392-399.
  9. Nayak S, Iwasa J (2019). Preparing scientists for a visual future: Visualization is a powerful tool for research and communication but requires training and support. EMBO reports, 20(11), e49347.
  10. Cooney I, Han H, Stewart MG, Carson RH, Hansen DT, Iwasa JH, Price JC, Hill CP, Shen P (2019). Structure of the Cdc48 segregase in the act of unfolding an authentic substrate. Science (New York, N.Y.), 365(6452), 502-505.
  11. Han H, Fulcher JM, Dandey VP, Iwasa JH, Sundquist WI, Kay MS, Shen PS, Hill C (2019). Structure of Vps4 with circular peptides and implications for translocation of two polypeptide chains by AAA+ ATPases. eLife, 8,
  12. Hurt E, Cheng J, Baßler J, Iwasa J, Beckmann (2023). SnapShot: Eukaryotic ribosome biogenesis I. Cell, 186(10), 2282-2282.e1.
  13. Iwasa (2023). Janet Iwasa. Current biology, 33(3), R87-R89.
  14. Watanabe S, Davis MW, Kusick GF, Iwasa J, Jorgensen E (2020). SynapsEM: Computer-Assisted Synapse Morphometry. Frontiers in synaptic neuroscience, 12, 584549.
  15. Rimel JK, Poss ZC, Erickson B, Maas ZL, Ebmeier CC, Johnson JL, Decker TM, Yaron TM, Bradley MJ, Hamman KB, Hu S, Malojcic G, Marineau JJ, White PW, Brault M, Tao L, DeRoy P, Clavette C, Nayak S, Damon LJ, Kaltheuner IH, Bunch H, Cantley LC, Geyer M, Iwasa J, Dowell RD, Bentley DL, Old WM, Taatjes D (2020). Selective inhibition of CDK7 reveals high-confidence targets and new models for TFIIH function in transcription. Genes & development, 34(21-22), 1452-1473.
  16. Andreotti AH, Joseph RE, Conley JM, Iwasa J, Berg L (2018). Multidomain Control Over TEC Kinase Activation State Tunes the T Cell Response. Annual review of immunology, 36, 549-578.
  17. Sinha NK, Iwasa J, Shen PS, Bass B (2018). Dicer uses distinct modules for recognizing dsRNA termini. Science (New York, N.Y.), 359(6373), 329-334.
  18. Chang YW, Rettberg LA, Treuner-Lange A, Iwasa J, Søgaard-Andersen L, Jensen G (2016). Architecture of the type IVa pilus machine. Science (New York, N.Y.), 351(6278), aad2001.

Review

  1. Iwasa J (2015). Bringing macromolecular machinery to life using 3D animation. Current opinion in structural biology, 31, 84-8.
  2. Iwasa JH, Lyons B, Johnson G (2022). The dawn of interoperating spatial models in cell biology. Current opinion in biotechnology, 78, 102838.
  3. Sinclair R, Hsu G, Davis D, Chang M, Rosquete M, Iwasa JH, Drakakaki (2022). Plant cytokinesis and the construction of new cell wall. FEBS letters, 596(17), 2243-2255.
  4. Nayak S, Liu H, Hsu GI, Iwasa J (2020). Using 3D Animation to Visualize Hypotheses. Trends in biochemical sciences, 45(7), 633-634.
  5. Schöneberg J, Lee IH, Iwasa JH, Hurley J (2017). Reverse-topology membrane scission by the ESCRT proteins. Nature reviews. Molecular cell biology, 18(1), 5-17.
  6. Richter WF, Nayak S, Iwasa J, Taatjes D (2022). The Mediator complex as a master regulator of transcription by RNA polymerase II. Nature reviews. Molecular cell biology, 23(11), 732-749.
  7. Clapier CR, Iwasa J, Cairns BR, Peterson C (2017). Mechanisms of action and regulation of ATP-dependent chromatin-remodelling complexes. Nature reviews. Molecular cell biology, 18(7), 407-422.

Book

  1. Iwasa, JH and Marshall, (2015). Karp's Cell Biology: Concepts and Experiments.

Letter

  1. Lyons B, Isaac E, Choi NH, Do TP, Domingus J, Iwasa J, Leonard A, Riel-Mehan M, Rodgers E, Schaefbauer L, Toloudis D, Waltner O, Wilhelm L, Johnson G (2022). The Simularium Viewer: an interactive online tool for sharing spatiotemporal biological models. Nature methods, 19(5), 513-515.

Video/Film/CD/Web/Podcast

  1. Iwasa JH, Saldena, (2015). TED Ed: Why it's so hard to cure HIV/AIDS.