The Microscopists

#54 — Florian Jug is Research Group Leader and Head of the Image Analysis Facility at Human Technopole, Milan. Florian joins Peter O'Toole to discuss his research using AI and machine learning to better analyze and quantify biological data. They chat about his early ambitions in computer science, and he tells us why he enjoys teaching various courses across the globe. We also hear about his hobbies of running (sometimes over 24 hours!) and pottery.

Watch or Listen to all episodes of The Microscopists here: https://themicroscopists.bitesizebio.com/

#53 — Christian Eggeling is Head of the Department of Biophysical Imaging at the Institute of Photonic Technologies (IPHT, Jena). In this episode of The Microscopists, Christian joins Peter O'Toole to discuss his varied career to date, starting with a degree in physics, a short stint in a biotech company, followed by faculty positions in Oxford and then Jena. They discuss the importance of scientific freedom and failures—and the impact that both Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic have had on science. We also hear about the challenges of balancing research with teaching—and his favorite movies—Pulp Fiction and the Big Lebowski!

Watch or Listen to all episodes of The Microscopists here: https://themicroscopists.bitesizebio.com/

#52 — Wah Chiu is Wallenberg Bienenstock Professor, and Professor of Bioengineering, and Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University. In this episode of the Microscopists, Wah chats with Peter O' Toole about his pioneering cryoEM work and his research goals of understanding the structural biology of organelles.

They also discuss careers in academia versus industry, the role of AI and alpha fold in structural biology, and speculate on the future of microscopy. On a lighter note, they chat about the importance of keeping fit, seeing family, and taking a break on holiday—and touch on being productive on plane journeys and city hopping across Europe.

Watch or Listen to all episodes of The Microscopists here: https://themicroscopists.bitesizebio.com/

#51 — Antje Keppler is the Director of Euro-BioImaging Bio-Hub. In this episode of The Microscopists, Antje joins Peter O'Toole to discuss the recent explosion and expansion of techniques in microscopy and how Euro-BioImaging is helping researchers access these. They also chat about fishing in Scandinavia and her reaction after being told girls shouldn't learn chemistry!

Watch or Listen to all episodes of The Microscopists here: https://themicroscopists.bitesizebio.com/

#50 — Michael Sheetz is the Robert A. Welch Distinguished University Chair in Chemistry at the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston. In this episode of the Microscopists, Michael joins Peter O'Toole to tell us about his new exciting work on cell senescence, and his time living in Singapore—and he gives us some great scientific advice.

Watch or Listen to all episodes of The Microscopists here: https://themicroscopists.bitesizebio.com/

#49 — In this episode, we talk to Elisabeth Bik, former microbiome researcher turned scientific integrity consultant. Elisabeth spends her time searching biomedical literature for inappropriately manipulated photographic images and plagiarized text, and often discusses these on Twitter at @MicrobiomDigest.

Following her successful scientific career in the lab, a stolen sentence she authored led her to become a scientific sleuth—combing the literature for cases of misconduct from plagiarism to image manipulations. We also chat about how these cases of misconduct might be detected in future through the help of software—but that the human eye is still our best tool for doing this.

We chat about the cultural differences between the USA, where she is currently based, and The Netherlands where she is from originally—and how this may help her in her current work! We also hear about Elisabeth's love of gardening, and the issues of gardening in California.

Watch or Listen to all episodes of The Microscopists here: https://themicroscopists.bitesizebio.com/