FIP Seminar Co-hosted with Department of Chemistry: Single-molecule imaging uncovers nanometer-scale fundamentals of cell biology and plasmonics

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Wed, 10/09/2019 - 12:00 to 13:00

Julie Biteen

Presenter

Dr. Julie Biteen, Associate Professor, Departments of Chemistry & Biophysics, University of Michigan

Our lab has been developing new super-resolution fluorescence microscopy methods to locate, track, and analyze single molecules to answer fundamental, unanswered questions in living bacterial cells. I will discuss how we are measuring and understanding the dynamical interactions essential for carbohydrate catabolism in the human gut microbiome. Overall, our results provide fundamental insight of relevance to human health and disease. On the other hand, the resolution of single-molecule bio-imaging is limited by the brightness of fluorescent probes. I will discuss how we are addressing this limitation by taking advantage of the localized surface plasmon resonances to improve the brightness and photostability of nearby fluorescent labels. We have measured plasmon-enhanced fluorescence one dye at a time and we are discovering how coupling leads to a predictable shift of the emission position, wavelength, and polarization.

Julie Biteen is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and of Biophysics at the University of Michigan, where her research program develops super-resolution microscopy for applications to microbiology and nanomaterials. Dr. Biteen earned an A.B. in Chemistry at Princeton University and a Masters in Applied Physics and a Ph.D. in Chemistry at Caltech. Dr. Biteen trained as a postdoc in the lab of W. E. Moerner at Stanford University, studying structural proteins in living bacteria cells with single-molecule imaging. In her independent career, Biteen has been recognized by numerous awards, including the Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award for women in biophysical sciences (2017), a Journal of Physical Chemistry Award Lectureship (2016), a Scialog fellowship from the Moore Foundation and the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (2015-16), a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface (2009-14), an NSF CAREER Award (2013-18), and a PicoQuant Young Investigator Award (2011).