Junjie is selected to give a talk at the Biophysical Society (BPS) Annual Meeting 2024

We are delighted to learn that Junjie’s project about developing quantum actuator is been selected for oral presentation at the BPS 2024 annual meeting at Philadelphia in February 2024 . We are very glad Junjie’s novel ideas are getting noticed by the community. Congratulations!

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Dinner with Prof. Plotnikov

We dined with our beloved collaborator Prof. Sergey Plotnikov from University of Toronto who was visiting Hopkins for an invited seminar at the Department of Cell Biology.

We are very pumped for your one year-long sabbatical stay with us next year. We look forward to doing some awesome research together, Sergey! Can’t wait!

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Happy Halloween 2023

This year almost everyone in the group was caught in a web of deadlines. So much so we decided to set the theme of our Halloween photoshoot as half-ass Barbies.

The following pictures accurately reflect our minimum efforts this year.

We decided to push for another picture so we might appear to rise above the minimum efforts.

Here!

Ever-competitive Daniel (horse-head  Barbie) as usual won the competition. He was named “the prettiest second-year PhD student in the MEOW lab Halloween photoshoot”.  Eileen’s raincoat Barbie and Hoff’s blackbelt Barbie were honorable mentions. Congratulations! Others did not put any efforts in this event and merely meekly donned the glittering hays on their heads as they were told. Fortunately they had some cookies and candies during the group meeting after the photoshoot to make up the energy to pose for the pictures.

Happy Halloween everyone!

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Junjie, Daniel and Eileen are selected for the ASCB Travel Award

Congratulations to Junjie, Daniel and Eileen who were notified that they are selected for the Travel Award to attend the 2023 American Society of Cell Biology (ASCB) meeting in Boston MA. Great job! We look forward to sharing the projects in our lab at the conference and learning the latest advances in the field of mechanobiology.

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Visiting University of Queensland

This September, we embarked on a 10-day trip, crossing oceans and continents to visit University of Queensland and work with our collaborators, a team led by Prof. Warwick Bowen. Together we measured intracellular activities with a new label-free optical microscopy. We also enjoyed the first-grade hospitality during our visit!

We gained a lot of insights by working side-by-side with our collaborators.

We also visited other groups at UQ who helped us tremendously with the access to cell culture.

It was a fruitful trip. We learned a lot and we had fun!

A big shout-out to Dr. Nicolas Mauranyapin who is so patient and so knowledgeable. Nico coordinated with us  planning our visit and made our visit so special.

 

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End of Summer 2023

As the Fall semester starts next week, we celebrated a busy and productive summer this year. We are fortunate to host many outstanding visiting students all over the world, Alejandro, Ivy, Amman, Nishith and Jeremy. Thank you for contributing to our research and for doing an excellent job!

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Daniel Passes Doctoral Qualifier Exam

Our brave Daniel passed the DQE exam with flying colors today, also his birthday. His exam was scheduled  3 months earlier than the regular exam set by the department. This sets the record in his class and in our lab. Congratulations and HAPPY BIRTHDAY Daniel! Now go print a cake!

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Junjie’s presentation at Center for Cell Dynamics

We marked the end of Spring 2023 semester by attending Junjie’s talk given at Center for Cell Dynamics (CCD), entitled “Quantum Actuation in Cells with Recombinant Magneto-sensitive Protein”.  We are very excited about this work and its applicational potential in precise control of specific biochemical reactions by shaping the local electromagnetic energy landscape and modulating proton and electron spins of enzymes. More cool examples about the emerging field of quantum biology can be found in the recently concluded Gordon Research Conference “Emerging Methodologies to Investigate Quantum Effects in Biology“.

We celebrated Junjie’s and his team’s (Samantha, Ryan, Rebecca and Yang) hard work by having loads of crabs. What a memorable Friday in an unusually chilled April! We look forward to more exciting results to come soon.

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Photoshoot 2022 “A Day in MEOW Lab”

We thank Junjie for organizing and directing the photoshoot. Please see what we are up to at the page.

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Matt’s paper on viscosity, membrane tension and intracellular temperature measurement is published

We are very happy to announce that Matt’s review paper “How sticky? How Tight? How Hot? Imaging probes for fluid viscosity, membrane tension and temperature measurements at the cellular level” is published in The International Journal of Biochemistry & Cell Biology. In the paper we review the progress made in imaging probes for three important physical parameters: viscosity, membrane tension, and temperature, all of which play important roles in many cellular processes. We discuss the techniques implementing imaging-based probes to measure viscosity, membrane tension, and temperature at subcellular resolution dynamically. The merits and shortcomings of each technique are examined, and the future applications of the recently developed techniques are also explored. We thank Dr. Tony Kanchanawong’s invitation for this opportunity to write a review paper on this underexplored topic. Congratulations to Matt, the leading author and our wonderful second author/illustrator at large Abdulla!

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