Past Event: Molecular BioPhysics Seminar Series

Super-resolution fluorescence imaging of extracellular environments

Prof. Lydia Kisley, Assistant Professor of Physics and Chemistry, Case Western Reserve University

Abstract

The extracellular matrix (ECM) is a biophysical environment that plays an important role in physiological processes and disease development. The ECM is highly dynamic, with changes occurring as local, nanoscale, physicochemical variations in physical confinement and chemistry from the perspective of biological molecules. The length and time scale of ECM dynamics are challenging to measure with current microscopic techniques. Super-resolution fluorescence microscopy has the potential to probe local, nanoscale, physicochemical variations in the ECM. Here, I will share our development of super-resolution imaging and analysis methods and their application to study model nanoparticles and biomolecules within synthetic ECM hydrogels. This includes 1) fluorescence correlation spectroscopy super-resolution optical fluctuation imaging or “fcsSOFI,” a super-resolution optical signal processing technique that simultaneously characterizes the nanometer dimensions of and diffusion dynamics within porous structures using correlation and 2) expansion microscopy using tensile force, a sample-based super-resolution method that physically expands stretchable hydrogels. Overall, super-resolution imaging is a powerful tool that can increase our understanding of extracellular environments at new spatiotemporal scales to reveal ECM processes at the molecular-level.

Biography

Lydia Kisley received her Bachelor of Science degree from Wittenberg University in 2010. During undergrad, she participated in research at Clemson University on silver nanoparticle self-assembly and at the University of Colorado at Boulder on nanofabrication of circuits containing GaN through which she gained an appreciation for interdisciplinary research. She was a NSF Graduate Research Fellow at Rice University under Prof. Christy Landes. She received her Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry in 2015 studying ion-exchange chromatography - an important separation technique in the pharmaceutical industry - at the single molecule level.  She then was a Arnold O. Beckman-Theodore “Ted” Brown Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign working with Prof. Martin Gruebele, Prof. Deborah Leckband, and Prof. Paul Braun to understand protein folding in polymer environments.