 |
|
|
|
|
Course Faculty
 W. James Nelson
Stanford University
Nelson Website
W. James Nelson was born and educated (B.S., Ph.D – Genetics and Cell Biology) in the UK, and received postdoctoral training at the Max-Planck-Institute for Cell Biology in Germany (Biochemistry), and at The California Institute of Technology, USA (Cell and Developmental Biology). His first independent position was at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, and he moved to Stanford University in 1990. He is a former Chairman of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, and Senior Associate Dean for Research in Stanford Medical Center. Currently, he is the Rudy J. and Donohue Daphne Munzer Professor, and Professor of Biology, and of Molecular and Cellular Physiology.
Nelson’s research seeks to understand how cell interactions specify the correct cellular organization of complex tissues, and how structurally and functionally different plasma membrane domains are assembled and tailored to specific tissue and organ functions in polarized cells. His laboratory takes multi-faceted experimental approaches to these problems including: biophysical methods using single molecules, and material sciences applications to develop novel cellular environments; in vitro reconstitution of functional protein complexes with purified proteins; state-of-the-art live cell imaging using GFP-tagged proteins and biosensors; and, analysis of abnormalities in cellular and subcellular protein organization in disease states. His laboratory focuses on experimentally tractable model cell systems that can be examined mechanistically by biochemical and cell biological approaches, and more complex developmental systems including Zebrafish and Dictyostelium. His research has provided detailed molecular insights into protein-protein interactions and mechanisms that link cell-cell adhesion to the functional differentiation of cells.
 Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz
National Institutes of Health
Lippincott-Schwartz Website
Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz obtained her Ph.D from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, received post-doctoral training with Dr. Richard Klausner at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), NIH, Bethesda, MD, and is currently Chief of the Section on Organelle Biology in the Cell Biology and Metabolism Branch of the NICHD. Lippincott-Schwartz's research uses live cell imaging approaches to analyze the spatio-temporal behavior and dynamic interactions of molecules in cells. These approaches have helped to change the conventional 'static' view of protein distribution and function in cells to a more dynamic view that integrates information on protein localization, concentration, diffusion and interactions that are indiscernible from protein sequences and in vitro biochemical experiments alone. The projects in Lippincott-Schwartz's lab cover a vast range of cell biological topics, including protein transport and the cytoskeleton, organelle assembly and disassembly, and the generation of cell polarity. Analysis of the dynamics of fluorescently labeled proteins expressed in cells is performed using numerous live cell imaging approaches, including FRAP, FCS and photoactivation. Most recently, her research employs photoactivation localization microscopy, called PALM, that enables visualization of molecule distributions at high density at the nano-scale.
 Michael W. Davidson
Florida State University
Michael W. Davidson is an Associate in Research affiliated with the Department of Biological Science and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at the Florida State University. Davidson’s laboratory is involved in development of educational websites that address all phases of optical microscopy, including brightfield, phase contrast, DIC, fluorescence, confocal, TIRF, and multiphoton. In addition to his interest in educational activities, Davidson is also involved in research involving the performance of traditional fluorescent proteins and optical highlighters in fusions for targeting and dynamics studies in live cells. Davidson’s digital images and photomicrographs have graced the covers of over 2000 publications in the past two decades and he has licensed images to numerous commercial partners. The proceeds of these licensing fees support Davidson’s research.
 Dan Fletcher
University of California, Berkeley
Fletcher Website
Our laboratory studies the mechanics and dynamics of cell motility and shape change on three levels:
* Purified proteins, which are used for reconstitution and identification of minimal systems for force generation, shape change, and spatial organization
* Whole cells, which are used to investigate the ability of single cells to crawl, swim, attach, and deform
* Groups of cells, which are used to study aggregation and collective behavior
For these studies, we are developing new instrumentation and measurement technologies to quantify cell and molecular mechanics. Our tools include optical microscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), optical trapping, and microfabrication, as well as biophysical modeling and simulation. Based on our understanding of cell and molecular mechanics, we are developing medical devices that aid in clinical diagnosis and treatment of disease.
 Joe Howard
Max Planck Institute, Dresden
Howard Website
 KC Huang
Stanford University
Huang Website
KC Huang was an undergraduate Physics and Mathematics major at Caltech, and spent a year as a Churchill Scholar at Cambridge University working with Dr. Guna Rajagopal on Quantum Monte Carlo simulations of hydrogen bonding in water clusters. He received his PhD from MIT working with Prof. John Joannopoulos on electromagnetic flux localization in polaritonic photonic crystals and the control of melting at semiconductor surfaces using nanoscale coatings. During a short summer internship at NEC Research Labs, he acquired an interest in self-organization in biological systems, and moved on to a postdoc with Prof. Ned Wingreen in the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton working on the relationships among cell shape detection, determination, and maintenance in bacteria. He now runs a research group at Stanford utilizing a combination of analytical, computational, and experimental approaches to probe physical mechanisms of shape-related self-organization in the regulation and mechanics of cell division, cell growth and morphology determination, membrane organization, and ion-channel cooperativity. He and his car both greatly prefer the winter weather in Palo Alto compared with New Jersey, and he looks forward to exploring the ocean depths of the Bay Area now that he is dry-suit scuba certified..
 Jian Liu
NHLBI,National Institutes of Health
Liu Website
Jian Liu obtained Ph. D. in theoretical chemistry from UC Berkeley in 2005. His Ph. D. thesis is on statistical mechanics of lipid phase segregation. Jian Liu then received postdoctoral training from Professors of Jose' Onuchic and Terence Hwa at CTBP of UCSD, George Oster and David Drubin at UC Berkeley. Jian Liu joined NIH as a tenure-track principal investigator since 2009.
Jian Liu is a theoretical biophysicist, who uses statistical physics to model various cellular processes. His research focus is in understanding the mechanochemistry of complex cellular processes. That is, situations where the feedback between mechanics and chemistry gives rise to robust adaptive responses to, and control over, cellular behavior. The current research has covered three general areas: (1) membrane trafficking; (2) cell motility; (3) cell division. Mechanochemical coupling in these areas dictates the central aspect of the cell biology. All the ongoing theoretical efforts in Jian Liu's group are in extensive collaboration with experimentalists.
 Wallace Marshall
University of California, San Francisco
Marshall Website
I've always been interested in both biology and engineering, at least ever since I was old enough to realize I wasn't really going to be an astronaut. In high school I tried to combine these interests by using computer simulations to study systems of enzymatic reactions, but pure simulation didn't satisfy my need to get into trouble with experiments. As an undergrad at SUNY Stony Brook, I majored in both Electrical Engineering and Biochemistry, with the goal of inventing a computer that would grow inside living cells.
This goal got me thinking about how cells build structures within themselves, a question that I am still pursuing. I did my Ph.D. at UCSF with John Sedat, studying nuclear architecture and chromatin diffusion using image analysis methods, and then a postdoc at Yale with Joel Rosenbaum using genetics to study the mechanism of flagellar length control. Now that I have my own lab, we are focusing on questions of how cells control geometry, especially the size, number, and position of organelles. Almost all projects in the lab combine imaging, computation, and genetics in varying degrees, and whenever possible we try to build things to help us.
 David Odde
University of Minnesota
Odde Website
I am originally from Minneapolis, and am now a professor there in the Dept. of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. So I haven’t gone very far in my life (~2 miles). My academic training is in chemical engineering, but my interests have trended toward biology for many years. While in graduate school at Rutgers University, I became fascinated by molecular motors and the cytoskeleton, and this fascination continues to this day. Since then my main focus has been on understanding the mechanochemical basis of microtubule assembly dynamics and the role that these dynamics play in cellular processes such as mitosis, polarization, and neuron growth. More recently I expanded my interests to include cell motility, substrate stiffness sensing, and geometric control of cell signaling. In the past I developed microfabricated systems for cell and tissue engineering applications, and a future goal is to integrate these systems into my cell biological research.
My approach to cell physiology is to construct mathematical models, use computer simulation to predict behavior, and compare the predictions directly to experimental data. With the advent of GFP technology, we can now observe the distribution and dynamics of many of the key molecular components underlying cellular processes. The physics of the digital light microscope is also modeled to account for the blurring and noise artifacts, an approach that we call “model-convolution”. This allows an ‘apples-to-apples’ comparison between experimental images and synthetic computer generated images so that we can test a hypothesis. By iterative simulation of these stochastic models, we estimate the probability that the hypothesis is correct. In addition to hypothesis testing, the modeling serves to improve our intuitive understanding and allows us to explore new concepts. In my own lab we do both modeling and experimentation.
My own experience with MBL dates to 2003 when I spent part of a sabbatical there. Working with Ted Salmon, I was able to develop my thinking about mitotic mechanisms so that we could develop better models and ways to test those models. It was incredibly productive and fun, and I am looking forward to returning. The Physiology course enjoys a stellar reputation, and so I am honored to serve as an instructor. It should be a great time!
 Rob Phillips
Cal Tech
Phillips Website
My background is in physics, but in the 90s I found myself reading ever more biology and yearning for the chance to work on the beautiful and mysterious organisms that are the mainstay of biology. My transition from physics to biology has been built largely around intense summer experiences like that at Woods Hole. What makes the physiology course exceptional is the chance to interact with some of the sharpest and most creative scientists in the world in an atmosphere where the attitude is to "just try it''. This is a liberating and exciting experience and reflects what I always thought it would be like to be a scientist. Indeed, my time spent at Woods Hole is among my happiest scientific experiences.
Work in my group centers on what we call "physical biology of the cell" and amounts to trying to construct simple, predictive models of biological phenomena and to construct decisive experiments to test these models. Some of the areas we are having fun working on at the moment include: packing and ejection of DNA from viruses, the role of DNA looping in transcriptional regulation and manipulating mechanosensitive ion channels by tuning membrane properties.
 Michael Sheetz
Columbia University
Sheetz Website
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
