Session V:
September 18, 2025
11:00 AM to 1:00 PM EDT
Solving Challenges of Biological EM
Thank you Sponsors!
Anurag Sharma
Overcoming Challenges in invertebrate EM: Studying Mosquito Mating and Ant Socializing
Anurag has extensive experience with diverse biological models and high-resolution bioimaging techniques, including TEM, SEM, electron tomography, 3D modeling, immunogold labeling, Cryo-SEM, and widefield and confocal laser scanning microscopy. He earned his Ph.D. in Protein Biochemistry and Structural Biology from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India, followed by a postdoc at the Max-Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Munich, Germany. His initial exposure to electron microscopy occurred during his postdoctoral work at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, where he studied thylakoid membrane bending in plants and cyanobacteria. Promoted to Assistant Professor, he investigated nanohydroxyapatite interactions with plant tissues using TEM-EDS. In 2022, he joined the Electron Microscopy Resource Center at Rockefeller University, in New York City, USA, contributing to numerous EM projects and assisting scientists in unraveling complex biological processes.
Erik Johnson
Brain Observatory Storage Service & Database
Erik Johnson is a senior research scientist in the Neuroscience Group at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Working at the intersection of AI research and large-scale neuroscience research, he has contributed to a range of neuroinformatics efforts relevant to the EM community. This includes the development of machine learning tools and workflow management solutions for EM data, data standards for neuroscience EM datasets, and contributions to BossDB, the BRAIN Initiative archive of record for neuroscience EM datasets. This talk will cover the basics of the archive, ecosystem, and associated tools of relevance to volume EM neuroscience datasets.
Heather Rose Berensmann
Thinking Outside the Box in Making Cryo-EM More Accessible for Everyone
Heather is the TEM applications specialist for Hitachi High-Tech America. Receiving her graduate degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Drexel University, she now supports a diverse range of industries and applications. Prior to Hitachi, she gained hands-on experience in biological imaging at the Frederick National Laboratory under the mentorship of Dr. Kedar Narayan. There, she contributed to the development and optimization of advanced workflows for prepping and processing biological specimens for high-resolution volume electron microscopy (vEM). Bridging together her education in materials science, with her experience in biology, she now provides researchers across the country with technical expertise and applications support. Among the diverse applications Heather supports, the one she has developed a personal passion for is cryo-EM. In her latest research, she explores solutions focused on expanding the accessibility to cryo-EM technology. By democratizing cryo-EM access, she hopes to enable wider scientific innovation and discovery.
Veer Bhatt
Electron Tomography in Life Sciences: Technology and Applications
Veer is an applications scientist with Thermo Fisher Scientific. He specializes in various life science applications in transmission electron microscopy (TEM) such as electron tomography, room temperature TEM imaging, cryogenic electron microscopy, single particle analysis and microcrystal electron diffraction. As an application scientist he delivers training in life sciences TEM, and also likes to contribute to generation of best practices and simplified workflows in the field. Veer received his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University where he studied lipopolysaccharide pathway in Gram negative bacteria, and oxygen affinity and effects of glycosylation in hemoglobin using protein crystallography. While pursuing his postdoctoral studies in the lab of Dr. Jae-Hyun Cho at Texas A&M University he investigated the structure, function and dynamics of the modular protein CT-10 regulator of kinase II (CrkII) and its interaction with several partners such as cAbl kinase using a combination of NMR spectroscopy, protein crystallography and fluorimetry. Veer transitioned to leverage modern electron microscopy technology for research during his postdoctoral research in the lab of Dr. Anna Sundborger-Lunna at Hormel Institute-University of Minnesota. Using a combination of cryo-EM and various other biophysical techniques, he studied mechanism of membrane deformation by endophilin B1, a protein crucial to certain apoptotic and autophagy pathways. In collaboration with Dr. Hideki Aihara’s lab at University of Minnesota, Veer also contributed in investigating the mechanism of viral DNA integration from oncogenic human T-cell leukemia virus type-1 (HTLV-1) into host chromosomes.