We build new ways to see individual molecules inside living cells, and use them to discover how molecular organization drives what cells do. One example is the cytoplasmic flows that deliver proteins to the front of a migrating cell.
Our research Join the labiPALM image of actin in a migrating cell, colored by height above the coverslip (yellow 0 nm to violet 400 nm). Galbraith et al., Nat Commun 2026
Jim and Cathy discovered that actin treadmilling drives compartmentalized cytoplasmic flows, or “tradewinds,” that carry soluble proteins to the leading edge of migrating cells. This is a previously unknown principle of how cells organize their interior.
Featured in a Current Biology Dispatch by R. Dyche Mullins: “Cytoplasmic rivers carry molecular cargo.”
To see individual proteins inside living cells, you need to control when fluorescent molecules turn on and off. These spontaneously blinking dyes, made with the Lavis Lab at HHMI Janelia, do that without harsh chemicals or damaging light.
How actin treadmilling creates flows that carry proteins to the front of a migrating cell.
How dyes that switch on and off by themselves let us see individual proteins in living cells, without harsh chemicals or damaging light.
How cytoplasmic “tradewinds” deliver soluble proteins to where, and when, a migrating cell needs them.
How the molecular organization of adhesions and the actin cytoskeleton turns matrix probing into directed movement.
Spontaneously blinking dyes that let us see individual proteins in living cells, without harsh chemicals or damaging light.
Microscopes we design and build ourselves, to make measurements that were previously impossible.
Our Nature Communications paper on cytoplasmic tradewinds is highlighted in a Current Biology Dispatch, “Cytoplasmic rivers carry molecular cargo,” and featured on FocalPlane.
Our collaboration with the Lavis Lab on spontaneously blinking dyes is published in Nature Methods.
“Compartmentalized cytoplasmic tradewinds direct soluble proteins” is published in Nature Communications and picked up by more than 20 news outlets worldwide.
Former summer intern Zenya Bain wins a Goldwater Scholarship.