Rate My Professor Timothy Megraw

Timothy Megraw, Ph.D., is Professor of Biomedical Sciences in the College of Medicine and Professor of Neuroscience at Florida State University. He earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, B.S. in Biochemistry from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and completed postdoctoral training in Molecular Genetics at Indiana University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Since joining FSU in 2009, Megraw has advanced to full Professor and serves as Director of the Postdoctoral Career Development Program. He is a member of the Center for Brain Repair, Neuroscience Program, and various committees including faculty recruitment, graduate admissions, postdoc training, Life Sciences Symposium steering, and proteomics users.

The Megraw Lab studies centrosomes and cilia functions in cell division, development, and disease using Drosophila, mouse, and human cell models. Research encompasses asymmetric stem cell division, microtubule-organizing center regulation, centrosome protein loss-induced metabolic disorders, primary cilium assembly, and centrosome defects in brain development and microcephaly syndromes like MCPH and SCKL. Investigations also address Zika virus disruption of centrosome pathways in neural stem cells, linking inherited and viral microcephaly. Megraw received the Florida State University Innovator Award in 2011 and Outstanding Senior Faculty Researcher Award in 2012. Key publications include 'A perinuclear microtubule-organizing centre controls nuclear positioning and basement membrane secretion' (Nature Cell Biology, 2020), 'Coordination of Zika Virus Infection and Viroplasm Organization by Microtubules and Microtubule-Organizing Centers' (Cells, 2021), 'Ninein domains required for its localization, association with partners dynein and ensconsin, and microtubule organization' (Molecular Biology of the Cell, 2024), 'A distinct isoform of Msp300/Nesprin organizes the perinuclear microtubule organizing center in adipose cells' (Molecular Biology of the Cell, 2025), and earlier influential works such as 'CDK5RAP2 regulates centriole engagement and cohesion in mice' (Developmental Cell, 2010) and 'The Centrosomin protein is required for centrosome assembly and function during cleavage in Drosophila' (Development, 1999). His contributions elucidate centrosome roles in disease, advancing cell biology, developmental neuroscience, and stem cell research.