Xinran Nick Liu
Complementary Cryo-Electron Tomography and FIB-SEM Approaches for Characterizing Bacterial Infection in Host Cells
Xinran Liu is the Director of Center for Cellular & Molecular Imaging (CCMI), the electron microscopy core facility at Yale School of Medicine, and a Senior Research Scientist in Neuroscience. His research focuses on ultrastructural studies of neurons and synapses using advanced electron microscopy techniques. He oversees a comprehensive imaging facility that serves as a major institutional resource for biomedical research at Yale and beyond, providing access to state-of-the-art biological electron microscopy technologies. The facility supports a full spectrum of electron microscopy applications through a team of highly skilled staff members with expertise in sample preparation at both room and cryogenic temperatures, 2D and 3D imaging, image processing, and user training. As a common practice, he collaborates closely with investigators across a wide range of biological and biomedical disciplines, helping researchers leverage EM approaches to address fundamental scientific questions in their fields.
Ashish Gadicherla
Application of Electron Microscopy in Clinical Diagnosis
Ashish Gadicherla is Director of the Oxford Instruments Center for Advanced Imaging–EM Core and Interim Technical Director of the Structural Biology Shared Resources, where he supports researchers in a broad range of imaging applications, from optical microscopy to cryo-electron microscopy. Ashish received his bachelor’s degree in biotechnology and master’s degree in biological sciences from Purdue University. He subsequently conducted research at the Medical College of Wisconsin on mitochondrial respiratory complexes and ion channels before earning his PhD from Ghent University, Belgium, where he studied the role of mitochondrial Connexin 43 channels in cardiac ischemia-reperfusion injury. His doctoral research also included planar lipid bilayer electrophysiology to characterize channel properties.
As a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Oslo University, Norway, he investigated the roles of microRNAs and extracellular matrix proteins in cardiac fibrosis. He later pursued structural biology research at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysics, contributing to structural studies of sodium- and potassium-gated ion channels using cryo-electron tomography.
Eduardo Rosa-Molinar
Title: TBA
Rosa-Molinar is the WashU Center for Cellular Imaging (WUCCI) scientific director and a professor of Cell Biology & Physiology and Neuroscience. He has over 40 years of experience in adopting, developing and implementing imaging methodologies in both optical and electron microscopy. Rosa-Molinar previously served as the director of Microscopy and Analytical Imaging (MAI) Research Laboratory at the University of Kansas.
In addition, Rosa-Molinar runs a research program aimed at elucidating niche specialization of connexions in heterotypic electrical synapses found in neural microcircuits, and he utilizes optical and electron microscopy techniques to assay his research questions.
Rosa-Molinar develops and applies novel microscopy approaches to the study of neuronal connections that allow brain cells to communicate. Brain cells communicate to one another across synapses — small gaps between cells that allow chemical and electrical messages to pass from one neuron to the next. Rosa-Molinar studies the proteins in the cell membrane of brain cells that act as channels through which signals pass into the synapse.
Abigail Lytton-Jean
Giovanni de Nola
ToCLEM or Not ToCLEM: Overcoming Classical Limitations in Correlative Microscopy
Abigail Lytton-Jean is the Scientific Director of the Nanotechnology for Integrative BioEM (NanoFIB) shared resource at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. Her team serves as an innovation platform focused on the characterization and imaging of biologically relevant materials, with unique expertise in multi-scale electron microscopy (EM) under both room-temperature and cryogenic conditions. Central to NanoFIB’s impact are bespoke, custom-tailored approaches to workflow design, protocol development, and sample preparation that enable advanced volume EM, cryoEM, correlative EM, and immunoEM applications. These integrated preparation and imaging workflows support multiscale structural visualization of cells, tissues, and synthetic materials while enabling precise targeting of regions of interest with nanometer-scale resolution.
Dr. Lytton-Jean received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Northwestern University under the supervision of Prof. Chad Mirkin. She completed her postdoctoral training at MIT in the laboratories of Prof. Robert Langer and Prof. Daniel Anderson, where she specialized in bio-nanotechnology and drug delivery.
Giovanni De Nola is a Research Scientist at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, where his work focuses on developing advanced Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy (CLEM) methodologies. In particular, he is developing and expanding a cryosection-based CLEM approach that combines molecular labeling with high-quality ultrastructural preservation. The methodology is compatible with multiple super-resolution fluorescence microscopy techniques and both 2D and 3D electron microscopy, providing a versatile platform for correlating molecular information with cellular ultrastructure across imaging scales. Prior to joining MIT, Dr. De Nola worked with Prof. Pascal Kaeser at Harvard Medical School, applying high-pressure freezing/freeze substitution (HPF/FS) and immuno-electron microscopy to investigate the ultrastructural mechanisms of synaptic transmission. He previously completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School in the laboratories of Prof. Tomas Kirchhausen and Steve Harrison, where he studied viral entry in artificial systems and cells using advanced fluorescence and volume electron microscopy. Dr. De Nola received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the University of Pavia, Italy, where he worked with Prof. Ermanno Gherardi on the development of a novel MET receptor agonist.