The NESM fall meeting was held at Brandeis University this year. Lab tours were offered during registration. Interim President Fettah Kosar opened the meeting with the unfortunate news that Xiaowei Zhuang had lost her voice and would be unable to speak. Luckily, Jeff Gelles from Brandeis University stepped in at the last minute to present his CoSMoS (Colocalization Single Molecule Spectroscopy) microscopy technique which uses a set of micro mirrors to do dichroic-less Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy. Andrew Magyar from Harvard University then followed with another technique talk, presenting Atom Probe Tomography. APT is a time-of-flight mass spectroscopy technique with a position-sensitive detector. The results are three-dimensional reconstructions of the atomic composition and spatial arrangement of the sample. Examples such as segregation of aluminum in aluminum-doped zinc oxides were presented. Adam Martin from MIT presented some of his group’s work on drosophila embryo tissue development using time-lapse confocal microscopy. The work focused on how the cells were mechanically deformed in a pulsed manner during embryo development.
The annual business meeting was held and new officers were elected to the board. Jennifer Ross from UMass Amherst was chosen as President Elect, Louis Kerr of the Marine Biological Laboratory continued as Treasurer, Wendy Salmon from the Whitehead Institute at MIT was welcomed as a new Biological Sciences Director, Huilang Zhang from Harvard University was re-elected as Physical Science Director, and Avital Rodal from Brandeis University was appointed as interim Biological Sciences Director. Minor changes to the bylaws were put to a vote and accepted also.
There was much socialization over dinner in the Brandeis faculty club. Finally, Bruce Goode gave the evening’s keynote lecture about actin and cytoskeletal dynamics. The talk combined single-particle electron microscopy and single-molecule TIRF microscopy to probe the assembly and disassembly of actin filaments in cells and to identify the first-ever actin depolymerase.
Thanks to all the speakers, Andor for sponsoring the shuttle from the parking lot, and to the Brandeis MRSEC for sponsoring Brandeis student meeting fees.
Arthur McClelland
Physical Sciences Director
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