Lewis Tilney

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Lewis G. Tilney is an American cell biologist and professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned his PhD from Cornell University Medical College in 1964. Tilney studies the cytoskeleton, the inside framework of animal cells, and how its different parts determine a cell’s shape and movement. He has explored key structures such as the microvilli of intestinal cells, the actin tails of the bacterium Listeria, the stereocilia in inner-ear hair cells, and the bristles of fruit flies.

In his Drosophila work, Tilney examined how actin filaments are bundled with the help of forked proteins and fascin. He found that forked proteins act early to form bundles and allow fascin to join in, which helps cross-link and align the bundles. When these cross-linkers are missing, bundles are much smaller. He also showed that the amount of actin growth depends on where actin can attach to surrounding material.

Tilney also studied the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, showing actin can polymerize at the parasite’s front end and that myosin binds to these filaments, indicating actin’s role in the parasite’s movement. Later work looked at how protease inhibitors can modify the processing of secretory proteins in the parasite.

He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1998 and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1975.