David Sherwood

David Sherwood is Professor of Biology and Associate Chair of the Department of Biology at Duke University, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences. He also serves as Associate Professor in Cell Biology and Professor in Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at Duke University School of Medicine, Member of the Duke Cancer Institute since 2019, and Co-Director of the Duke Regeneration Center since 2021. Sherwood received a B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1990 and a Ph.D. from Duke University in 1997, where he studied the role of the Notch receptor in early sea urchin development in the laboratory of David McClay. He conducted postdoctoral research in Paul Sternberg’s laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, where he established the anchor cell invasion model in Caenorhabditis elegans. Sherwood has been recognized with several prestigious awards, including the Pew Scholar Award, Basil O’Connor Scholar Award, Howard Temin Award, Ruth Kirschstein Award, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Special Fellowship, American Cancer Society Research Fellowship, and Mayent-Rothschild-Institute Curie Award.

The Sherwood laboratory investigates the cellular and molecular mechanisms driving dynamic cellular behaviors in development and disease, with a focus on cell invasion through basement membranes, stem cell-niche interactions, and cell-extracellular matrix dynamics. Using C. elegans as a model system, the lab leverages genetics, live-cell imaging, and molecular tools to uncover these processes, which are relevant to regeneration, cancer, and aging. Notable publications include 'Anchor cell invasion into the vulval epithelium in C. elegans' (Developmental Cell, 2003), 'FOS-1 promotes basement-membrane removal during anchor-cell invasion in C. elegans' (Cell, 2005), 'The UNC-40 (DCC) Receptor Mediates a Morphogenetic Switch that Directs C. elegans Anchor Cell Invasion Across Basement Membrane' (Nature Cell Biology, 2012), 'Netrin Stabilizes UNC-40(DCC)-Generated Oscillatory Polarity to Direct Anchor Cell Invasion in C. elegans' (Cell, 2012), 'Forces drive basement membrane invasion in Caenorhabditis elegans' (PNAS, 2018), and recent works such as 'De novo lipid synthesis and polarized prenylation drive cell invasion through basement membrane' (Journal of Cell Biology, 2024) and 'Specialized high-capacity mitochondria fuel cell invasion' (Current Biology, 2026). Sherwood runs the Development and Stem Cell Biology Colloquium each spring, teaches undergraduate Cell Biology (Bio 220) and graduate courses on cell invasion, basement membrane biology, and developmental classics, and co-directs the Embryology Course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Professional Email: david.sherwood@duke.edu