Diana Goncalves Schmidt
Kent State University at Kent, OH·Biophysics·Early-career
Where a messenger RNA (mRNA) sits inside a cell helps decide where proteins are made. mRNAs are the molecules that carry genetic instructions from DNA, and their placement matters for brain development, cell communication and fertility.
- Fields
Biophysics
Biomedical Engineering
Neuroscience
- Topics
DNA nanotechnology
DNA origami
mRNA imaging
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2031
What they work on
- Optimize the production of DNA origami barcodes, folded DNA nanostructures carrying programmable nanocrystal patterns and fluorescent labels, and characterize them with gel electrophoresis, fluorometry and electron microscopy.
- Validate multiplexed barcode detection of reproductive signaling mRNAs in neuroendocrine cell lines using correlative light and electron microscopy (CLEM).
- Map multiple mRNAs at nanometer resolution in ultrathin sections of hypothalamic regions that regulate reproduction, applying the optimized barcode workflow.
- Develop image analysis and segmentation methods, including machine learning, to resolve clustered barcodes and combine fluorescence and electron microscopy datasets.
More about the research
Current microscopes force a trade-off. Fluorescence microscopy can tell many molecules apart but cannot pinpoint them at very small scales. Electron microscopy shows fine cell structures but struggles to distinguish many labels at once. This project aims to close that gap with tiny DNA-built barcodes that both kinds of microscope can read.
Why it matters
Many universities already have standard fluorescence and electron microscopes, so a barcode toolkit that works on both could make nanometer-scale mapping of many RNAs widely accessible. Applied to the hypothalamus, it could clarify how the brain and hormones control female fertility. The platform could also be adapted to other biological systems that need high-resolution molecular maps.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
William E Moerner
Stanford University, CA·Biophysics
Develop a 3D super-resolution microscope that images over a large depth range using pupil-plane phase patterns and a tilted light sheet, for single-molecule imaging and tracking in living cells.
Thorsten Schmidt
Kent State University at Kent, OH·Biophysics
Build ring-shaped DNA nanostructures that self-assemble from synthetic DNA strands and can be filled with lipids and membrane proteins, making the proteins water-soluble in a membrane-like setting.
Aaron Kuan
Yale University, CT·Neuroscience·Early-career
Improve the resolution of X-ray nano-holography (XNH), which reconstructs 3D structure from interference patterns of coherent X-rays, at a fourth-generation synchrotron source so that synaptic connections between neurons are directly visible.
The school
Kent State University at Kent: 6 labs on PI Pages, $61M a year on research, 162 research doctorates a year.
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