About “Allyson O’Donnell”

Dr. Allyson O’Donnell joined the department in 2018. Allyson is also a member of the Center for Protein Conformational Diseases at the University of Pittsburgh ( http://www.proteindiseasecenter.pitt.edu/about-our-center), The Pittsburgh Center for Evolutionary Biology and Medicine (https://www.cebam.pitt.edu/), and the American Society for Cell Biology. Allyson serves as a mentor for the Science Outreach Program at Taylor Allderdice High School.

Dr. O’Donnell received her B.S. degree in Biochemistry and M.S. degree in Biology from the University of New Brunswick (Canada). During her Masters’ thesis work she identified genes needed for de novo purine biosynthesis in Drosophila melanogaster and characterized the developmental defects associated with mutations in these genes. Dr. O’Donnell went on to receive her Ph.D. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from Dalhousie University (Canada) where she studied the role of the FACT histone chaperone complex in chromatin remodeling.

During her post-doctoral research at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley Dr. O’Donnell began her research on a previously unstudied class of protein trafficking adaptors, now referred to as the α-arrestins. Her research has shown that α-arrestins regulate trafficking of G-protein coupled receptors, but also operate in unexpected trafficking pathways, including endosomal recycling and clathrin-independent endocytosis. Using Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model, she has identified α-arrestin interactions with signaling regulators, cargos and vesicle coat proteins, and has begun to define the molecular mechanisms underlying α-arrestin-mediated trafficking. Her research applies insights gained in yeast to target studies on the relatively unstudied mammalian α-arrestins.