John G. White Professor Address/E-mail Program Affiliations Fields of Interest Publications Research Description >>> Extended Homepage <<<

Contact Information

LOCI, Room 271 Animal Sciences 1675 Observatory Drive Madison, WI 53706

Tel: 608/265-4813/263-6288 E-mail: jwhite1@facstaff.wisc.edu

Program Affiliations

• Biomedical Engineering
• Anatomy

• Biomedical Engineering Center

Fields of Interest

Also Principal Investigator, Laboratory for Optical and Computational Instrumentation (LOCI)

Optical and computational instrumentation for live cell studies

Development of new optical sectioning microscopy techniques

Cell cycle control and cytoskeletal dynamics

Publications

Recent Publications:

Hyman, A.A. and J.G. White (1987) Determination of cell division axes in the early embryogenesis of C. elegans. J. Cell Biol. 105:2123-2135.

Podbilewicz, B. and J.G. White (1994) Cell Fusions in developing epithelia in Caenorhabditis elegans. Development 161:408-423.

White, J.G. and S. Strome (1996) Cleavage plane specification in C. elegans: how to divide the spoils. Cell 18:195-198.

O'Connell, K.F., C.M. Leys and J. White (1998) Temperature sensitive cell division mutants of Caenorhabditis elegans. Genetics (in press).

Hird, J.N. and J.G. White (1993) Cortical and cytoplasmic flow polarity in early Caenorhabditis elegans. J. Cell Biol. 121:1343-1355.

Research Description

I run two collaborative but distinct laboratories, one a biological laboratory that investigates cell division in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, and the other an interdisciplinary Biophotonics Instrumentation laboratory that develops new computational and optical techniques for live cell studies.

The research in my biology laboratory is focused on two basic problems: how a cell in a developing metazoan cleaves and how the two daughter cells can acquire different fates. An animal cell cleaves by the progressive constriction of an equatorial contractile ring. We are interested in how the cleavage plane is specified, how the contractile ring forms and how the daughter cells finally become pinched off. For these studies we use advanced microscopy and genetic techniques.

In the LOCI instrumentation laboratory we collaborate with researchers from other disciplines to develop advanced optical and computational techniques for imaging and experimentally manipulating living specimens. New and improved imaging instrumentation and optical-based experimental techniques are being developed. These projects are driven by demands arising from the scientific studies of external collaborators and the principal investigators and opportunities that arise with the emergence of new technology. Instrumentation development is undertaken in a form that is both accessible and beneficial to the scientific community. Current instrumentation projects include:

1. Developmental of new instrumentation for in vivo cancer imaging. This work is in collaboration with BME Professor Nirmala Ramanujam.
2. In collaboration with the Electrical Engineering department, development of a Laser Scanning Microscope Control System that utilizes Digital Signal Processors.
3. In collaboration with the Space Sciences Laboratory, development of a software package for the analysis and manipulation of Multidimensional Biological Image Data.

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