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BioCurrents Research Center STAFF
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| BRC Staff (details listed below >>) Peter J.S. Smith, Director and Senior Scientist Tiffany Van Mooy, Program Administrator Tamara Clark, Web Design and Informatics Leon Collis, Research Associate David Graham, Research Assistant I Emma Heart, Assistant Research Scientist Robert Lewis, Research Assistant Mark Messerli, Associate Director (Research) Shanta Messerli, Assistant Research Scientist Richard Sanger, Research Associate Adjunct appointments associated with core projects Josh Gray (U.S. Coast Guard Academy) Anoop Menachery (University of Wales, Bangor), Graduate Student Ron Pethig (Edinburgh Research Partnership in Engineering and Mathematics) Summer Research Assistants 2008 Amy Lijistrand Phil Hewett Additional Resident Members of the Cell Dynamics Program (CDP) (For more information, visit the CDP website >>) Gary Borisy (Director, MBL) Maria Gomez (Universidad Nacional de Colombia) Grant Harris (Research Assistant III, ADLC: MBL) Shinya Inoue' (Distinguished Scientist, ADLC: MBL) Jane MacNeil (Administrative Assistant, CDP: Imaging) Enrico Nasi (Universidad Nacional de Colombia) Rudolph Oldenbourg (Senior Scientist, ADLC: MBL) Harris Ripps (Senior Research Scientist) Michael Shribak (Researcher, ADLC: MBL) Alex Valm (Researcher, ADLC: MBL) |
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| BioCurrents Research Center Staff |
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| Peter J.S. Smith, PhD.,
Director and Senior Scientist |
Tiffany VanMooy, Program Administrator | |
 Peter Smith is currently Interim Director of the Cellular Dynamics Program and Director of the NIH:NCRR BioCurrents Research Center (BRC) as well as an MBL Senior Scientist at MBL. Dr. Smith is a graduate of Aberdeen University, Scotland, where he completed his Ph.D in 1979 under the supervision of Dr. Peter Boyle. After three years at the University of Manchester, studying reticulospinal neuroanatomy with Prof. D.M. Guthrie, he moved to the University of Cambridge, working initially with Dr. John Treherne, and then as a Leverhulme Research Fellow. He was awarded an MA from Cambridge University in 1991. He has been director of the BRC since 1994. More >>(view cv) |
 Tiffany Van Mooy has been employed at the BRC in a half time capacity since 2005. She holds a B.F.A. from The Ohio State University, with a major in drawing and painting. Her work at the BRC includes oversight and preparation of grant proposals; development of budget projections; monitoring and verifying expenditures; ensuring compliance with Laboratory policies and procedures; and preparation of financial and administrative reports to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). |
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| Tamara Clark, Web design and Informatics |
Leon Collis, PhD., Research Associate |
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 Tamara's background is in Biology, Science Illustration and Design. She received a B.A. in Biology from Goucher College in 1994 and an M.S. in Forest Ecology from the University of Maine in 1996. She is an active member of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators and freelances for the Smithsonian and the Encyclopedia of Life. She joined the staff of the BioCurrents Research Center in 2004. For the BRC she designed and maintains the website; is involved with archiving of cellular images and data; and contributes to the Pharmase project, a database of proteins linked to the compounds that affect them. |
 Dr. Collis earned his B.Sc. in Biology from Lancaster University, located in England, his home country. He consequently received his Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Rhode Island in Kingston (RI) in 2002, where he studied the physiology of invertebrate cardiac muscle. Prior to joining the MBL, Dr. Collis worked for 3 years as a post-doctoral fellow at the NYU School of Medicine, New York, NY, where he studied the developmental changes in β-adrenergic regulation of the heart. Leon’s current research involves studying the bioenergetics of single, excitable cells using novel technologies. More >>(view cv) |
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| David Graham, Research Assistant I | Robert Lewis, Research Assistant | |
 David Graham received his B.S. in Biology at UMass Dartmouth in 2005 and his M.S. in Biology at UMass Boston in 2009. While at the MBL, his research interests have focused on the protein-protein interactions and structure-function relationships of the ATP-dependent transmembrane ion pumps that play an important role in maintaining ionic homeostasis within cells. He is also currently involved in research projects that employ expressible protein based fluorescent indicators for measuring extracellular analytes and has recently begun work on cell motility and directionality. |
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| Emma Heart, PhD., Assistant Research Scientist | Mark Messerli, PhD., Associate Research Scientist |
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 Dr. Heart received her M.S. in Chemical Sciences from Charles University in Prague in 1991 and her Ph.D. in Physiology & Biophysics from USCLA in 2002. A new focus of her research involves the development and application of sensors for direct measurement of plasma membrane electron transport (PMET). This has been catalyzed by recent findings that inhibitions of quinone reductase, a component of PMET, inhibits insulin secretion. PMET, is a ubiquitous system, which accounts for 10-20% of extra-mitochondrial oxygen consumption. PMET activity was first characterized in plants and it is now being characterized in limited number of mammalian tissues. She has demonstrated that PMET is active in insulin secreting cells and that PMET activity is crucial for insulin secretion. More >> (view cv) |
D r. Mark Messerli received his B.S. in Biology in 1992 and his Ph.D. in Neurobiology in 1999, from Purdue University. His focus is on developing tools for the study of real-time physiology of single cells. Motivation for development comes from his own biomedical and biological research interests and those of his colleagues. His research emphasizes the measurement of extracellular gradients in the boundary layer that arise due to events that may occur in the cytoplasm, at the plasma membrane or in the extracellular space. More >>(view cv) |
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| Shanta Messerli, Assistant Research Scientist | Richard Sanger, Research Associate | |
 Dr. Shanta Messerli received her B.S. from Wellesley College in 1994 and her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Purdue University in 2001. Her research efforts have been focused on the general theme of neuronal injury and repair. This has involved studying chemical toxicity and mechanical damage to neurons, possible therapies for neuronal tumors, as well as mechanisms of resistance of tumors to chemotherapeutic drugs. Her current research includes development and testing of signal blocking therapeutics to treat a variety of tumors whose growth depends on the kinase PAK1, including those associated with neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2). More >> (view cv) |
 Richard Sanger has been Senior Electronics Technician at the BRC since 1990, first with Dr. Jaffe when the Center was known as the Vibrating Probe facility and now with Dr. Smith. Rick’s work focuses on developing self-referencing systems, Including mechanical components, electronic control circuitry, amplifiers and software. |
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Adjunct appointments associated with core projects |
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| Joshua Gray U.S. Coast Guard Academy |
Ron Pethig University of Edinburgh |
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 B.S. Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, 1998, Pennsylvania State UniversityPh.D. Pathobiology, 2004, Pennsylvania State University Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Environmental Medicine, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Jeffrey D. Laskin, Ph.D., Advisor (2004-2006) Visiting Research Associate, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA (June-August, 2004-2008) |
 Ron Pethig has held the Chair in Bioelectronics at the School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh, since 2008. Prior to this he held a Personal Chair at the School of Electronics, Bangor University, from 1986. From 1986 to 1998 he was Director of the Institute of Molecular and Biomolecular Electronics at Bangor, and between 1998 to 2003 he was seconded to Aura BioSystems Inc, California, serving first as Vice-President for Research and then as CEO. He remains a Board Member of this company. He enjoys a long association with the MBL - being elected a Corporation Member in 1982 and as an Adjunct Senior Scientist in 2005. In January 2006 he became the first recipient of the Eugene and Millicent Bell Endowed Fellowship in Tissue Engineering at the MBL. Anoop Menachery University of Edinburgh (Post-doctorate, Pethig Laboratory)  Anoop Menachery is a post-doctorate research fellow from the University of Edinburgh working with the BRC and Ron Pethig on developing tools for measuring dielectrophoresis. |
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Robert Lewis joined the BRC in 2000 to help with designing, building and implementing the IonView system. His work now includes building and improving the solid state micro-electrodes (i.e. oxygen micro-electrode), maintaining and repairing the systems and training visitors to use the system.
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