Looking Under the Hood of Cells from Micron to Atomic Scales

Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz, Janelia Research Campus, HHMI, Ashburn, VA

Abstract: 

Powerful new ways to image the internal structures and complex dynamics of cells are revolutionizing cell biology and biomedical research. In my talk, I will focus on three emerging technologies capable of revealing new properties of cellular organization at scales ranging from nanometers to atomic resolution. Whole cell milling using Focused Ion Beam Electron Microscopy (FIB-SEM) was used to reconstruct the entire cell volume at 4-nm voxel resolution, revealing all membrane-bound organelles and their trafficking intermediates at isotropic resolution. Single particle tracking using Halo dyes revealed unexpected features of mRNA trafficking, including sites where secretory proteins are translated on ER and their regulation by lysosomes. Finally, High Resolution Template Matching (HRTM) of ribosome subunits in cryo-EM images of intact human cells afforded a look at ribosomes at different stages of peptide elongation at the atomic scale. Together, these new tools open up a plethora of questions related to mechanisms of cell structure/function that can now be studied in intact cells at the nanometric/molecular level. 

Biography of Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz 

Dr. Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz is a Senior Group Leader at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus and Head of the Research Program on 4D Cellular Physiology. Lippincott-Schwartz has pioneered the use of green fluorescent protein technology for quantitative analysis and modeling of intracellular protein traffic and organelle dynamics in live cells. Her innovative techniques to label, image, quantify and model specific live cell protein populations and track their fate have provided vital tools used throughout the research community. Her findings using these techniques have reshaped thinking about the biogenesis, function, targeting, and maintenance of various subcellular organelles and macromolecular complexes and their crosstalk with regulators of the cell cycle, metabolism, aging, and cell fate determination. 

She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Society of Arts and Sciences and the European Molecular Biology Organization. She is also a Fellow of The Biophysical Society, The Royal Microscopical Society and The American Society of Cell Biology. Her awards include the E.B. Wilson Medal of the American Society of Cell Biology, the Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Van Deenen Medal, the Keith Porter Award of the American Society of Cell Biology, the Feodor Lynen Medal, and the Feulgen Prize of the Society of Histochemistry. She co-authored the textbook “Cell Biology” and was President of the American Society of Cell Biology. Dr. Lippincott-Schwartz attended Swarthmore College, received her MS from Stanford University, and obtained her PhD in Biochemistry from Johns Hopkins University.