Dr. Emily Gibson of Bioengineering secures $1M NSF grant to build unique microscope

Bioengineering faculty member Emily Gibson is awarded a $1 million dollar NSF grant for development of a unique fluorescent microscope allowing visualization of dynamic cellular processes at resolutions approaching the size of  protein complexes (tens of nanometers).  Diego Restrepo, Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, Director of the Center for Neuroscience, is co-PI of the grant and Dr. Stephanie Meyer, Research Associate in the Department of Bioengineering is key personnel.  The technology development grant will fund a 5 year effort to build the microscope making CU Denver the only place in the country with such capability for research.  The research projects enabled by the new instrument include studies of the dynamic organization of protein complexes in synapses upon control of neural plasticity, studies of the molecular-level mechanisms of odor transduction by direct stimulation of the transduction pathway, and methods for writing/reading bits at sub-diffraction dimensions in high density data storage materials.