Philipp keller was selected as the 2017 John Kendrew Young Scientist Award winner for ground-breaking work on light-sheet microscopy and computational technologies that allow whole-animal imaging. Much of the image analysis software and microscope blueprints developed by Philipp and his team are now in the public domain, and the work has granted him an outstanding record of publications in high-ranking journals (40 in the last seven years). Philipp, now Group Leader at the Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, studies early brain development and function. He has co-organised several conference series that have strengthened bonds between EMBL and Janelia Research Campus, and participates in philanthropic activities for children’s science education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Philipp Keller\u2019s fascination with animal development dates back to his training as a physicist. \u201cI enjoy understanding how complex systems work,\u201d he says. \u201cSome of the most complex things, you will find in biology \u2013 like a developing embryo or a higher functioning brain.\u201d After studying physics and computer science at the University of Heidelberg, he went on to complete his PhD at EMBL. Not only did he have the opportunity to combine physics and biology studies during his PhD, but he also was able to work in three different labs and with three different advisors \u2013 an interdisciplinary experience that helped direct and shape his research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First Keller worked in Joachim Wittbrodt\u2019s group on a project focused on visualising and reconstructing how a zebrafish forms from a single cell. They wanted to know how the single cell divides, migrates and develops into other tissues to form an embryo. It had never been seen before and it was technically difficult to study a vertebrate embryo at the cellular level. \u201cIt was a technology problem,\u201d Keller explains, \u201cso it was natural to form a collaboration with a group that was looking into new tools. I think EMBL is set up to encourage that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keller then began work in Ernst Stelzer\u2019s lab on a new kind of microscope, which he called the Digital Scanned Laser Light-Sheet Microscope (DSLM). While the group awaited some parts Keller needed in order to build the new microscope, Keller joined a third project headed by group leader Michael Knop: spore formation in yeast. \u201cFrom a modelling perspective, it was interesting to me,\u201d Keller says. \u201cWe wanted to understand this process through computer simulation in addition to experiments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I could see the developing fish right in front of my eyes!”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Once the parts to create the DSLM in Stelzer\u2019s lab arrived, Keller found that the skills he\u2019d learned in computational modelling came full circle in the zebrafish project. The DSLM was faster and produced higher quality images than existing microscopes, which made it possible to image a developing zebrafish embryo for the first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRather than trying to work through a bunch of text and numbers, I could see the system \u2013 the developing fish \u2013 right in front of my eyes!\u201d, Keller says. This gave him better insight into how biologists think about development at the cellular level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After Keller completed his PhD at EMBL, he set off to map complex systems in the body as a group leader at the Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Virginia, USA, where he is currently based. He continues to research developmental biology, in particular the nervous system and how it develops and first starts to function in the course of embryogenesis. \u201cIt\u2019s not only important to know where the cells are located and what shape they have,\u201d he says, \u201cbut it is also important to know what they can do \u2013 like how they become active, how they fire for the first time and how they interact with other cells to form complex circuits.\u201d One example is looking at how activity of neurons in certain regions of the brain changes as we execute a certain behaviour, like walking or stopping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But in order to see such minute and speedy activity, which can be measured by monitoring calcium concentrations in the neurons, his lab needs sensitive microscopes. Neurons are flooded with calcium when they fire, and they are emptied when they reset. It is possible to detect this activity with an indicator sensitive to calcium concentrations or even by measuring the electrical signals themselves, but neurons can spike one hundred or even one thousand times per second. \u201cIf you want to get the timing relationship right between cells, you need to match these timescales,\u201d Keller explains. \u201cThis is why we want the microscopes to be as fast as possible, and this is why we are building a new generation of them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n By Margaux Phares and Sarah B. Puschmann<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Philipp keller was selected as the 2017 John Kendrew Young Scientist Award winner for ground-breaking work on light-sheet microscopy and computational technologies that allow whole-animal imaging. Much of the image analysis software and microscope blueprints developed by Philipp and his team are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":15294,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-15290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"acf":[],"embl_taxonomy_terms":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/keller_philipp_175.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15290"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15444,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15290\/revisions\/15444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15290"},{"taxonomy":"embl_taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/embl_taxonomy?post=15290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}