Collaborators

Ahmed Heikal, Associate Professor, Penn State Bioengineering lab website
Ahmed is an expert in multiphoton microscopy and spectroscopy, as well as time-resolved fluorescence. He is interested in probing protein-protein interactions and metabolic disorders in vivo , and our groups have complementary interests in membrane dynamics. We hold joint group meetings with Ahmed and his group, where we talk about research progress, journal articles and related topics.

Mary Beth Williams, Assistant Professor, Penn State Chemistry lab website
Mary Beth's group is interested in nanoscale electronics, and Ben Hutchins in her group is studying quantum dots. We are collaborating with Mary Beth and Ben to develop new strategies for labeling biomolecules with quantum dots to probe molecular interactions in model membranes and living cells.

Steve Benkovic, Professor, Penn State Chemistry lab website
Steve and his group have studied the de novo purine biosynthetic pathway for many years. We are working with Michael Webb, a postdoc in his group, to follow how the various enzymatic activities in this biosynthetic pathway interact in vivo , which will provide insight into how this pathway is organized spatially in the cell.

Sarah Assmann, Professor, Penn State Biology lab website
Sally is a leader in plant cell biology, and her group is interested in signal transduction of guard cells and G-protein signaling in Arabidopsis . We have just started a project with Sally and her group to probe the dynamics of these signaling processes using quantitative fluorescence microscopy and spectroscopy.

Gabriel Spalding, Associate Professor, Illinois Wesleyan Physics lab website
Gabe and his group have been using sophisticated optical traps to manipulate materials on the micro- and nanoscales to understand the fundamental physics behind how various materials assemble and interact.  He and his group are helping us with some of the programming needed to control our dynamic holographic optical trap. 

Anne Hinderliter, Assistant Professor, North Dakota State Pharmaceutical Sciences lab website
Anne and her group combine theoretical and experimental approaches to understand the thermodynamics of proteins binding to biomembranes.  One of her interests is to understand protein-induced lipid domain formation, and we are particularly excited to collaborate with her to better understand the dynamics of of these types of molecular interactions.