Cell scientist to watch – Pakorn ‘Tony’ Kanchanawong

Pakorn ‘Tony’ Kanchanawong grew up in Thailand and received his bachelor's degree in chemistry and biological sciences from Cornell University (USA) in 2001. He then went on to Stanford University for his PhD work on non-classical Stark spectroscopy of photosynthetic reaction centers in the laboratory of Steven Boxer. Subsequently, Tony joined the research group of Clare Waterman at the NIH as a post-doc, where he used super-resolution techniques to study cell adhesion and cell migration. In 2011, Tony started his own research group at the Mechanobiology Institute (MBI), with a joint appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore. His research interest lies in dissecting the structure–function relationship that underlies protein complexes that are involved in cell migration and adhesion, as well as their capability to transduce forces from the environment into the cell.