With the exception of egg and sperm cells, all cells in our body contain two sets of chromosomes, one from our father and one from our mother. Egg and sperm cells, however, contain only one copy of each chromosome. Only a small population of cells in our body, called germ cells, can produce egg and sperm cells, through meiosis. This process requires many additional steps, which in turn increases the likelihood of error.

Luckily, our cells constantly monitor the integrity of DNA. If mistakes are found, the cells repair these mistakes prior to further division. These mechanisms are called checkpoints.

Early in Hochwagen’s graduate work, he decided that yeast would be the perfect testbed for understanding how these checkpoints work. While yeast cells are not in the business of creating sperm and eggs, they still undergo meiosis when they reproduce.

Hochwagen discovered that a widely used immunosuppressant drug called rapamycin may be interfering with a cell’s ability to correct genetic mistakes during meiosis, a finding that’s particularly alarming since patients who take this drug often take it for life.

At Whitehead, Hochwagen continues to delve into the deeper question of how cells repair genetic damage, something for which yeast continues to provide us with essential insights.

Hochwagen received his PhD in 2006 from MIT, in the lab of former Whitehead Fellow and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Angelika Amon. In 2000 he received the Boehringer Ingelheim Fund Doctoral Fellowship Award, and in 2001 the Diploma Thesis Award from the Austrian Chemical Society.

Selected Publications

Hochwagen A., Amon A. (2006). Checking Your Breaks: Surveillance Mechanisms of Meiotic Recombination. Curr Biology 16 (6), R217-28.

Hochwagen A., Tham W.-H., Brar G.A., Amon A. (2005). The FK506-binding protein Fpr3 counteracts protein phosphatase 1 to maintain meiotic recombination checkpoint activity. Cell 122 (6): 861-73.

Hochwagen A., Wrobel G., Cartron M., Demougin P., Niederhauser-Wiederkehr C., Boselli M., Primig M., Amon A. (2005). A novel response to microtubule perturbation in meiosis. Mol Cell Biol, 25 (11): 4767-81.

Haering C.H., Lowe J., Hochwagen A., Nasmyth K. (2002). Molecular architecture of SMC proteins and the yeast cohesin complex. Mol Cell, 9 (4): 773-88.

Panizza S., Tanaka T., Hochwagen A., Eisenhaber F., Nasmyth K. (2000). Pds5 Cooperates with Cohesin in Maintaining Sister Chromatid Cohesion. Curr Biology,10 (24): 1557-64.