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Staff Profile

Dr Adam Wollman

NU Academic Track Fellow (NUAcT)

Background

I develop new microscopes which can directly image individual biological molecules at work in living cells. This technology has lots of applications so I collaborate with many life scientists but I focus on questions related to diabetes and cells ability to sense and respond to signals, including glucose and insulin. Here I use model yeast and mouse cells, to observe the protein molecules which transport glucose or switch genes on and off. I try to understand how they work in healthy cells or when things go wrong in diseases like diabetes.


I started my scientific career as a physicist before applying these skills to the life sciences, where many of the most interesting scientific problems are left to solve. I worked with many great groups at the Universities of Oxford and York and collaborated with many others around the world. I applied to NUAcT to start my own independent lab at a world class university which supports the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of research and maintains a collegiate and inclusive environment. The fellowship will give me the time, space and resources to establish a really exciting program of research.

Research

I design and build new optical microscopes which can image the individual molecules of life at work in living cells. These single-molecule microscopes utilise high contrast fluorescence techniques to label different molecules in cells. The videos and images require a lot of computational image analysis to try to understand what they mean so I also write a lot of software. I’ve applied these techniques to many life and health science problems. Working with many excellent collaborators, I have investigated transcription factors in yeast (eLife, Faraday Discussions, FEMS letters), DNA replication in E.coli (eLife), division in S. Aureus (eLife, Physical Biology), the Epidermal Growth Factor (bioArXiv), human immune signalling (Frontiers of Immunology) and toxins (FASEB) and more

For microscopists, I utilise many super resolution and other techniques including: Narrowfield/Slimfield, TIRF, FRAP, PALM, STORM, confocal, EM, Optical and magnetic tweezers.

Teaching
I am always open to supervising PhD, MRes and undergraduate project students.
Publications