For my 34-year scientific career at UCSF, I have taken a reductionist approach to cell biology, reconstituting phenomena such as motility, cytoskeleton regulation, or signaling pathways in test tubes or through studying cells in culture. However, my lab at Janelia will shift and fully embrace the new 4DCP direction.
As a system, we are starting by studying the liver, a system rich in cell biological questions and amenable to gene delivery and microscopy.
Initially, the team will be focused on organelle cell biology of liver hepatocytes, particularly how proteins are sorted and targeted to apical and basal compartments and how mitochondria are positioned with cells, employing advanced light and electron microscopy as well as protein biochemistry to study these problems.