Judges 2012

Dr. Paul Maddox - An Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Cell Biology, Université de Montréal, Canada, Dr. Maddox is also a Principal Investigator at Canada's Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer. His work combines expertise in microscopy with cellular and biochemical approaches to investigate cellular processes, with the goal of understanding the mechanisms of cell division. His team focuses mostly on understanding kinetochores, large protein structures essential for dividing cells. Kinetochores may be ideal cancer therapy targets because their only role seems to involve cell division, making drugs targeting them less likely to affect other cell processes or to produce unwanted side effects. An author of more than 60 research publications, Dr. Maddox also serves on various advisory and editorial boards.

Dr. John M. Murray - Dr. Murray is a member of the Department of Biology at Indiana University. In addition to his faculty duties and research, Dr. Murray is also a long-time instructor of advanced microscopy techniques at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and other microscopy courses worldwide. Dr. Murray's research focuses on the replication and assembly of daughter cells of the human pathogen Toxoplasma gondii, which infects a third of the human population. In addition to his expertise in optical microscopy and live-cell imaging, Dr. Murray also uses electron microscopy to solve biological problems. He is the author of numerous scientific and educational publications, including a well-regarded review article on laser scanning confocal and deconvolution microscopy in the popular Live-Cell Imaging handbook published by Cold Spring Harbor Press.

Dr. Alison North - Senior Director of the Bio-Imaging Resource Center and Research Associate Professor at The Rockefeller University in New York City, Dr. North is a cell biologist with expertise in virtually all areas of fluorescence microscopy. Throughout her career, Dr. North has applied a variety of optical microscopy techniques to her research on cell-cell junctions and membrane-cytoskeletal interactions. Among the many advanced optical microscopy techniques she uses are 3D-SIM and STORM super-resolution techniques, laser scanning confocal, live-cell imaging, multiphoton, deconvolution, differential interference contrast, fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP), fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET), spinning disk confocal, laser microdissection, and a variety of techniques applied in digital image processing. Dr. North also has considerable experience with transmission and scanning electron microscopy.