Sami is a molecular and structural biologist studying how microtubules and other molecular machines organise and reshape cells.
Sami studied Biology at McGill University, where he completed his PhD in Gary Brouhard’s Lab. He combined reconstitution, fluorescence microscopy and cryo-electron microscopy to show how differences in tubulin structure produce microtubules with distinct architectures and dynamics.
He then joined Andrew Carter’s lab at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology as a postdoctoral fellow. There, Sami developed biochemical methods and computational analysis tools to study large, flexible protein assemblies. This work produced a high-resolution structure of dynein–dynactin on microtubules and later helped uncover conserved principles of ESCRT-III membrane remodelling.
Sami is now an Investigator Scientist at the MRC LMB, where he studies how adaptor proteins assemble and regulate the microtubule motors dynein and kinesin. He will establish his group at the Francis Crick Institute in January 2027, where he will study how microtubules, membranes and other cytoskeletal systems build and dismantle the machinery of cell division.
