H-Y Holman wins Shirley Award
ESD’s Hoi-Ying Holman has won the 2010 David A. Shirley Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement at the ALS, for her work in “pioneering the study of living cells and their response to environmental stimuli using synchrotron-based FTIR [Fourier Transform infrared] spectromocroscopy.” The award was announced early in October 2010 by David L. Osborn of the ALS’s Users Executive Committee.
Note that as part of the award, Holman will be presenting a 25-minute lecture related to her research at the 2010 ALS Users’ Meeting this coming Thursday morning, October 14, 8:30 a.m. in the Building 50 auditorium. Her talk will focus on the ability of living cells to modify cellular processes in response to changes in internal or external environments.
Holman notes that much of the current quantitative understanding of cellular molecular reactions has come from traditional biochemistry experiments that are either averaged over large populations or performed in-vitro with purified bulk biomolecules. Although these approaches have clarified many detailed mechanisms, they are not sufficient to reveal the phenotypic heterogeneities that are known to be present even in a genetically homogeneous population—and that are important in fields ranging from ecology to pathogenesis. The challenge has been to identify those cells of ecological or medical importance within a large population and then track their biochemical reactions in situ in real-time. By coupling infrared (IR) rays from a synchrotron to microscope environmental platforms, Holman has developed a robust and label-free approach to probe the chemical underpinnings of microbiological processes, which enables high-throughput, non-invasive spectroscopic microanalysis.
Congratulations, Hoi-Ying!