Ao.Univ.Prof. PD DI Dr. Johannes A. Schmid (Center for Physiology and Pharmacology, Dept. of Vascular Biology and Thrombosis Research, Medical University of Vienna)
Abstract
For a long period of time fluorescence stainings had just been a rather neglected part of the classical repertoire of histology. However, with the discovery and sequencing of green-fluorescent protein and the development of a multitude of spectral and functional variants thereof, fluorescence came back to the center stage of cell biology, as it allowed monitoring the behavior of labeled molecules in living cells under physiological conditions. I had the honor to be part of that development quite from the beginning on and could establish various laser scanning techniques to measure the mobility of signaling molecules within a given cell compartment or the shuttling between different compartments. Furthermore, we developed several methods to visualize molecular interactions via Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) – a technique, which we also successfully apply to patient tissue sections in combination with novel approaches of colocalization microscopy. More recently, we further extended these methods towards a quantitative assessment of molceular interactions providing information on relative affinities, as well as stoichiometries of binding partners using high-content microscopy as well as flow cytometry. Moreover, we established CRISPR/Cas9-based genome editing in our lab to label proteins at their natural expression level and preserving their physiological regulation. In combination with new techniques of superresolution microscopy based on radial fluctuation analysis, this will enable us to investigate complex signaling processes on a submicroscopic level. These cellular studies are complemented by methods of preclinical fluorescence imaging using transgene mice, as well as sophisticated co-cell culture studies under defined flow conditions.
Bio-Sketch
Ao.Univ.Prof. PD DI Dr. Johannes A. Schmid had his original training in biotechnology, and thereafter specialized on cell biology, biochemistry and molecular biology. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Novartis Research Institute in Vienna he joined the Vascular Biology Institute of the Medical University of Vienna, investigating molecular and cellular mechanisms of inflammation with a focus on NF-kappa B signaling. After a sabbatical at the Yale University Medical School in the group of Sankar Ghosh, he was co-founder and deputy director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Cancer Research, studying links between inflammation and cancer development with an emphasis on prostate cancer. When he returned to the Medical University of Vienna, he launched a special research program on “Cellular mediators linking inflammation and thrombosis” (SFB-F54; http://inthro.meduniwien.ac.at/), serving as speaker of a research network comprising ten groups working on basic research, pre-clinical mouse models as well as clinical aspects of thrombotic processes that are associated with various forms of chronic or acute inflammation. J. Schmid obtained two independent university lecture qualifications (habilitations) for the fields of vascular biology, and biochemistry and is author of many publications in life sciences (see: https://scholar.google.at/citations?user=7kJu_MYAAAAJ and
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6586-3507)