Joerg Bewersdorf PhD
Assistant Professor of Cell Biology and of Biomedical Engineering
Research Interests
Super-resolution fluorescence microscopy
Current Projects
We are currently working on multiple projects to further improve fluorescence imaging technology and applying these cutting-edge techniques to current biological questions.
Research Summary
Visualizing 3D structure and dynamics at the molecular
scale is a current and critical need in biomedical research. Many sub-cellular
features, for example the morphology of many organelles or the 3D organization
of chromatin, cannot be resolved by standard light microscopy.
Improving the resolution of light microscopy has therefore
been an urgent need of biological research for many decades. Today,
several methods achieve sub-100 nm resolution by taking advantage of reversible
or irreversible photo-physical switching properties of fluorescent markers.
Our research group in the Department of Cell Biology at Yale University School of Medicine is developing new fluorescence microscopy
techniques with spatial and/or temporal resolutions exceeding far beyond current
technology and also applying them to a diverse set of biological questions.
Extensive Research Description
Our laboratory works on both Stimulated Emission Depletion (STED) microscopy and Fluorescence Photoactivation Localization Microscopy (FPALM/PALM/etc.) techniques. Since October 2009, we have one of the first Leica TCS STED microscopes in the United States in our laboratory.
Additionally, we use 3D 'Biplane FPALM' instruments in current morphological studies of vesicle trafficking and 3D chromatin structure. Moreover, we are in the process of setting up next generation instruments with higher spatial or temporal resolution for tomorrow's cell biological research.
Selected Publications
- M.F. Juette and J. Bewersdorf (2010) Three-Dimensional Tracking of Single Fluorescent Particles with Submillisecond Temporal Resolution, Nano Lett., in press.
- D. Toomre and J. Bewersdorf (2010) A New Wave of Cellular Imaging, Annu. Rev. Cell Dev. Biol. 26:285–314.
- K.S. Morozova, K.D. Piatkevich, T.J. Gould, J. Zhang, J. Bewersdorf, V.V. Verkhusha (2010) Far-Red Fluorescent Protein Excitable with Red Lasers for Flow Cytometry and Super-Resolution STED Nanoscopy, Biophys. J. 99(2):L13-5.
- M.J. Mlodzianoski, M.F. Juette, G.L. Beane, J. Bewersdorf (2009) Experimental Characterization of 3D Localization Techniques for Particle-Tracking and Super-Resolution Microscopy, Optics Express 17(10):8264–8277.
- M.F. Juette, T.J. Gould, M.D. Lessard, M.J. Mlodzianoski, B.S. Nagpure, B.T. Bennett, S.T. Hess, J.Bewersdorf (2008) Three-dimensional sub-100 nm Resolution Fluorescence Microscopy of Thick Samples, Nature Methods 5(6):527-529.
- J. Bewersdorf, B.T. Bennett, K.L. Knight (2006) Novel H2AX Chromatin Structures Revealed by 4Pi Microscopy, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 103: 18137-18142.
- H. Gugel*, J. Bewersdorf*, S. Jakobs, J. Engelhardt, R. Storz and S.W. Hell (2004) Cooperative 4Pi excitation and detection yields 7-fold sharper optical sections in live cell microscopy, Biophys. J. 87: 4146-4152. * equal authorship
- J. Bewersdorf, R. Pick and S.W. Hell (1998) Multifocal Multiphoton Microscopy, Opt. Lett. 23(9): 655-657
