Unconventional Secretion: Extracellular Vesicles, RNA and Alpha-synuclein

Randy Schekman is a professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, and an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He studied the enzymology of DNA replication as a graduate student with Arthur Kornberg at Stanford University. His current interest in cellular membranes developed during a postdoctoral period with S. J. Singer at the University of California San Diego. 

Among his awards are the Gairdner International Award, the Albert Lasker Award in Basic Medical Research and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared with James Rothman and Thomas Südhof. He served as the Editor of the Annual Reviews of Cell and Developmental Biology and as Editor-in-Chief of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and eLife. 

Beginning in 2018, Prof Schekman serves as the Scientific Director of Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s Disease, a major philanthropic effort organised along with The Michael J. Fox Foundation to identify molecular and cellular mechanisms in the initiation and progression of Parkinson’s Disease. Prof Schekman’s laboratory investigates the mechanism of vesicular traffic in the secretory pathway in eukaryotic cells. Currently, the lab focuses on the unconventional secretion of extracellular vesicles and of soluble proteins, such as alpha-synuclein. The means by which alpha-synuclein is released by nerve cells may relate to the spread of pathology in Parkinson’s Disease.