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Wednesday, October 15, 2025
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Presenter: Dr. Wesley Legant, Assistant Professor, Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Pharmacology, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Living specimens are both animate and three-dimensional. We develop optical microscopes to perform fast 3D imaging of dynamic processes with improved spatiotemporal resolution. I will provide updates on our technology development work to develop self-driving light sheet microscopes that can autonomously capture rare events of interest and new interferometric instruments with 200 nm isotropic resolution. I will also provide updates on our efforts to apply new microscopy methods together with single-molecule imaging to understand the relationship between chromatin architecture and nuclear functions.
Dr. Legant is a joint assistant professor in the departments of Biomedical Engineering and Pharmacology at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. His lab develops new optical imaging techniques and image analysis tools. The lab is currently applying these new tools to understand diverse biological processes ranging from cell migration to gene transcription. Prior to joining UNC, Dr. Legant was a research scientist at HHMI Janelia Research Campus, where he worked together with Eric Betzig to develop and apply novel light microscopy technologies including Lattice Light Sheet, super resolution structured illumination, single molecule localization microscopy, and adaptive optics for fundamental applications in cell biology. Dr. Legant received his PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Biomedical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis. He is a recipient of the Searle Scholar’s award, the Beckman Young Investigator award, the Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering and the NIH New Innovator’s award.
Relevant Recent Publications:
1) Fu, T., Liu, G., Milkie, D.E., Ruan, X. et al… Betzig, E.#, Legant, W.R.#, Upadhyayula, S. A# (2025). Multimodal Adaptive Optical Microscope For In Vivo Imaging from Molecules to Organisms. bioRxiv 2025.06.02.657494; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.06.02.657494
2) Rahman F, Augoustides V, Tyler E, Daugird TA, Arthur C, Legant WR. Mapping the nuclear landscape with multiplexed super-resolution fluorescence microscopy. Nat Commun. 2025 Jul 1;16(1):6042. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-61358-0. PMID: 40593784; PMCID: PMC12215941.
3) Shi Y, Tabet JS, Milkie DE, Daugird TA, Yang CQ, Ritter AT, Giovannucci A, Legant WR. Smart lattice light-sheet microscopy for imaging rare and complex cellular events. Nat Methods. 2024 Feb;21(2):301-310. doi: 10.1038/s41592-023-02126-0. Epub 2024 Jan 2. PMID: 38167656; PMCID: PMC11216155.
4) Daugird TA, Shi Y, Holland KL, Rostamian H, Liu Z, Lavis LD, Rodriguez J, Strahl BD, Legant WR. Correlative single molecule lattice light sheet imaging reveals the dynamic relationship between nucleosomes and the local chromatin environment. Nat Commun. 2024 May 16;15(1):4178. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-48562-0. PMID: 38755200; PMCID: PMC11099156.
5) Shi Y, Daugird TA, Legant WR. A quantitative analysis of various patterns applied in lattice light sheet microscopy. Nat Commun. 2022 Aug 8;13(1):4607. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-32341-w. PMID: 35941165; PMCID: PMC9360440.
