Rate My Professor Melissa Borgen

Melissa Borgen serves as Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Science within the College of Engineering and Science at Florida Institute of Technology. Prior to her current role, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at The Scripps Research Institute - Florida from 2014 to 2020 under Dr. Brock Grill. Borgen obtained her PhD in Integrative Biology from Florida Atlantic University in 2014, advised by Dr. Rod Murphey, following her BS in Molecular Biology from the same university in 2005.

In the Borgen Lab, she employs genetics, cell biology, and live-imaging techniques in the C. elegans model system to elucidate the intracellular molecular mechanisms governing synapse formation and maintenance. Her investigations cover axon outgrowth, target recognition, axon termination, synaptic assembly, and crucially, synapse maintenance, which is essential for synaptic plasticity and circuitry retention throughout life. Synapse destabilization, an early feature of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, motivates her work to identify regulatory molecules and signaling pathways, including the RPM-1 ubiquitin ligase hub and its interactions with autophagy and tubulin acetyltransferase. Notable publications include "Autophagy is inhibited by ubiquitin ligase activity in the nervous system" published in Nature Communications in 2019, "Synapse maintenance is impacted by ATAT-2 tubulin acetyltransferase activity and the RPM-1 signaling hub" in eLife in 2019, "RPM-1 regulates axon termination by affecting growth cone collapse and microtubule stability" in Development in 2017, "The PHR proteins: intracellular signaling hubs in neuronal development and axon degeneration" in Neural Development in 2016, and more recent works such as "Ubiquitin ligase signalling networks shape presynaptic development, function and disease" in 2024 and "Activation of the heat shock response as a therapeutic strategy for tau toxicity" in 2024. Borgen has been honored with the ASCEND post-doctoral fellowship from 2018 to 2020, the Neuroscience Scholar award from the Esther B. O’Keeffe Charitable Foundation in 2017-2018, selection of her confocal image for the 2012 Cold Spring Harbor meeting abstract book cover, and the NSF GK-12 Research Fellowship from 2010 to 2012. Her contributions advance the understanding of synapse stability and offer potential avenues for therapeutic interventions in neurodegeneration.