Julia Mahamid | |
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Alma mater |
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Known for | cryo-electron tomography |
Scientific career | |
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Institutions | |
Thesis | Structural Investigation of Bone Mineralization Processes in the Zebrafish Fin and Embryonic Mouse Models [1] (2010) |
Academic advisors |
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Website | Mahamid Group |
Julia Mahamid is a cell biologist, structural biologist, and electron microscopist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, who utilizes biomolecular condensates and advanced cellular cryo-electron tomography to enhance the comprehension of the functional organization of the cytoplasm. She leads the Mahamid Group. [2]
Mahamid completed her Biology studies at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Israel between 2000 and 2003. After that, she pursued her Master's degree in Chemistry from 2003 to 2005, at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, under the guidance of Lia Addadi in collaboration with Dan Caspi. Later, from 2006 to 2010, Mahamid completed her Ph.D. studies under the supervision of Lia Addadi and Steve Weiner. [1]
For her postgraduate work, from 2011 to 2017, Mahamid worked as a postdoctoral researcher the guidance of Wolfgang Baumeister at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany. [3] [4] [5]
Since 2017, Mahamid has been a group leader at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
Mahamid's research is based on the development of new methods for cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET), which is a technique for high-resolution 3D imaging of cellular machinery in its natural state. Mahamid played a key role in the development of the cryo-focused ion beam (cryo-FIB) technique that facilitated the creation of "electron-transparent windows" in cells, enabling the observation of cellular structures and macromolecular complexes in their natural environment. [12]
Mahamid is a well-known[ according to whom? ] cell biologist, structural biologist, and electron microscopist. Hence, she is frequently invited to speak at seminars, [13] [14] [15] workshops, [16] [17] [18] and conferences [19] [20] in the field.
Mahamid is on the editorial board of the Journal of Structural Biology. [21]
Structural biology is a field that is many centuries old which, as defined by the Journal of Structural Biology, deals with structural analysis of living material at every level of organization. Early structural biologists throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries were primarily only able to study structures to the limit of the naked eye's visual acuity and through magnifying glasses and light microscopes.
Transmission electron cryomicroscopy (CryoTEM), commonly known as cryo-EM, is a form of cryogenic electron microscopy, more specifically a type of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) where the sample is studied at cryogenic temperatures. Cryo-EM, specifically 3-dimensional electron microscopy (3DEM), is gaining popularity in structural biology.
Cryogenic electron tomography (cryoET) is an imaging technique used to reconstruct high-resolution (~1–4 nm) three-dimensional volumes of samples, often biological macromolecules and cells. cryoET is a specialized application of transmission electron cryomicroscopy (CryoTEM) in which samples are imaged as they are tilted, resulting in a series of 2D images that can be combined to produce a 3D reconstruction, similar to a CT scan of the human body. In contrast to other electron tomography techniques, samples are imaged under cryogenic conditions. For cellular material, the structure is immobilized in non-crystalline, vitreous ice, allowing them to be imaged without dehydration or chemical fixation, which would otherwise disrupt or distort biological structures.
Patrick Cramer is a German chemist, structural biologist, and molecular systems biologist. In 2020, he was honoured to be an international member of the National Academy of Sciences. He became president of the Max Planck Society in June 2023.
Resolution in the context of structural biology is the ability to distinguish the presence or absence of atoms or groups of atoms in a biomolecular structure. Usually, the structure originates from methods such as X-ray crystallography, electron crystallography, or cryo-electron microscopy. The resolution is measured of the "map" of the structure produced from experiment, where an atomic model would then be fit into. Due to their different natures and interactions with matter, in X-ray methods the map produced is of the electron density of the system, whereas in electron methods the map is of the electrostatic potential of the system. In both cases, atomic positions are assumed similarly.
In structural biology, as well as in virtually all sciences that produce three-dimensional data, the Fourier shell correlation (FSC) measures the normalised cross-correlation coefficient between two 3-dimensional volumes over corresponding shells in Fourier space (i.e., as a function of spatial frequency). The FSC is the three-dimensional extension of the two-dimensional Fourier ring correlation (FRC); also known as: spatial frequency correlation function.
Biology data visualization is a branch of bioinformatics concerned with the application of computer graphics, scientific visualization, and information visualization to different areas of the life sciences. This includes visualization of sequences, genomes, alignments, phylogenies, macromolecular structures, systems biology, microscopy, and magnetic resonance imaging data. Software tools used for visualizing biological data range from simple, standalone programs to complex, integrated systems.
David S. Goodsell, is an associate professor at the Scripps Research Institute and research professor at Rutgers University, New Jersey. He is especially known for his watercolor paintings of cell interiors.
The EMBO Gold Medal is an annual award of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) given to young scientists for outstanding contributions to the life sciences in Europe. Laureates receive a medal and €10,000 and are invited to receive the award and present their research at the annual EMBO Meeting and to write a review published in The EMBO Journal. Medallists can only be nominated by EMBO Members.
Jacques Dubochet is a retired Swiss biophysicist. He is a former researcher at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, and an honorary professor of biophysics at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.
Cryogenic electron microscopy (cryoEM) is a cryomicroscopy technique applied on samples cooled to cryogenic temperatures. For biological specimens, the structure is preserved by embedding in an environment of vitreous ice. An aqueous sample solution is applied to a grid-mesh and plunge-frozen in liquid ethane or a mixture of liquid ethane and propane. While development of the technique began in the 1970s, recent advances in detector technology and software algorithms have allowed for the determination of biomolecular structures at near-atomic resolution. This has attracted wide attention to the approach as an alternative to X-ray crystallography or NMR spectroscopy for macromolecular structure determination without the need for crystallization.
Lori Anne Passmore is a Canadian/British cryo electron microscopist and structural biologist who works at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) at the University of Cambridge. She is known for her work on multiprotein complexes involved in gene expression and development of new supports for cryo-EM.
Madeline Lancaster is an American developmental biologist studying neurological development and diseases of the brain. Lancaster is a group leader at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK.
Wolfgang P. Baumeister is a German molecular biologist and biophysicist. His research has been pivotal in the development of Cryoelectron tomography.
Nicolas H. Thomä is a German researcher, full professor at the EPFL School of Life Sciences and Director of the Paternot Chair for Cancer Research in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is a biochemist and structural biologist and a leading researcher in the fields of ubiquitin ligase biology and DNA repair.
Sophie Geneviève Elisabeth Martin Benton is a Swiss biologist who is Professor and Director of the Department of Fundamental Microbiology at the University of Lausanne. Her research investigates the molecular processes that underpin cellular fusion. She was awarded the EMBO Gold Medal in 2014.
Stefan Raunser is a German scientist and structural biologist specializing in membrane proteins, the cytoskeleton, toxins, and sarcomere structural biochemistry. Since 2014, he has been a director at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund, Germany.
Melike Lakadamyali is a Cypriot physicist and an Associate Professor of Physiology and of Cell and Developmental Biology (secondary) at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, renowned for her work in super-resolution microscopy and Single Molecule Biophysics. She is the Group Leader of the Lakadamyali Lab.
Tanmay A. M. Bharat is a programme leader in the Structural Studies Division of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. He and his group use electron tomography, together with several structural and cell biology methods to study the cell surfaces of bacteria and archaea. His work has increased the understanding of how surface molecules help in the formation of multicellular communities of prokaryotes, examples of which include biofilms and microbiomes. He has been awarded several prizes and fellowships for his work.
Gaia Pigino is the Associate Head of the Structural Biology Research Center and Research Group Leader of the Pigino Group at the Human Technopole in Milan, Italy.