Kaverina Lab

Kung-Hsien joined Kaverina lab in 2015. He received his Ph.D. degree in Genome, Cell, Developmental Biology from Indiana University at Bloomington. Kung-Hsien is interested in understanding how the modulation of the microtubule network in pancreatic β cells fine-tunes insulin secretion. His research has identified microtubule associated protein tau as one of the important regulators of the microtubule network responding to glucose stimulation. He is currently focusing on deciphering the roles of α cells in promoting β cell microtubule turnover to support robust insulin secretion. Outside of science and research, Kung-Hsien enjoys dancing and teaching salsa. His favorite restaurants are McDonald’s and Wendy’s.

Highlighted publications:

1. Ho KH, Jayathilake A, etc. (2023) CAMSAP2 localizes to the Golgi in islet β-cells and facilitates Golgi-ER trafficking. iScience. 26(2):105938

2. Trogden KP, Ho KH*, Lee JS*, Bracey KM* etc. (2021) Microtubules regulate pancreatic β-cell heterogeneity via spatiotemporal control of insulin secretion hot spots. eLife. 10:e59912. (*equal contribution)

3. Ho KH, Yang X, Osipovich AB, etc. (2020) Glucose regulates microtubule disassembly and the dose of insulin secretion via Tau phosphorylation. Diabetes 69(9):1936-1947.

4. Yang X, Graff SM, Heiser CN, Ho KH, etc. (2019) Coregulator Sin3a promotes postnatal murine β-cell fitness by regulating genes in Ca2+ homeostasis, cell Survival, vesicle biosynthesis, glucose metabolism, and stress response. Diabetes 69(6):1219-1231.

5. Ho KH*, Bracey K*, etc. (2019) Microtubules regulate localization and availability of insulin granules in pancreatic β-cells. Biophys J. 118(1):193-206. (*equal contribution)

6. Ho KH, Tsuchiya D, Oliger A, & Lacefield S. (2014) Localization and function of budding yeast CENP-A depends upon kinetochore protein interactions and is independent of canonical centromere DNA sequence. Cell Reports 9(6): 2027–33.

7. Ho KH, Chang HE, & Huang WP. (2009) Mutation at the cargo-receptor binding site of Atg8 also affects its general autophagy regulation function. Autophagy 5(4): 461–71.