Dr. Ammasi Periasamy,
Department of Biology, University of Virginia
Dr. Ammasi Periasamy received his M.S. in Physics and M.S./Ph.D. in Biomedical engineering in 1980/1983 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India. Postdoctoral training in Biomedical Imaging was at the University of Washington, Seattle and where he developed a digitized video polarization microscope to study the functional aspect of myosin and actin molecules. Dr. Periasamy worked for six years in the video microscopy facility at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and used various light microscopy techniques to study calcium and pH signaling in living cells. His work resulted in the development of time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) and high-speed camera based fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) for measuring the oscillations in cytosolic and nuclear free calcium in single intact living cells.
Dr. Periasamy joined the University of Virginia in 1996 and is currently working as a Professor of Biology and Biomedical Engineering. He created an imaging center and developed (or integrated) number of state-of-the-art light microscopy imaging systems. A key area of his research is focused on the use of advanced light microscopy to study/monitor various biological and clinical systems ranging from a single cell to tissues. Recently, he developed a steady state, confocal, multiphoton, and FLIM based fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) imaging system for protein localization. The important aspect of the FRET-work is the development of a software package to remove the cross talk and calculate the nanometer (1-10 nm) distance between the protein molecules in living cells for various light microscopy techniques for any combination of fluorophore pairs. Dr. Periasamy is an internationally recognized expert in advanced microscopy techniques, particularly in the area of FRET imaging. He has published over 75 articles and book chapters and has edited a book on Methods in Cellular Imaging. Dr. Periasamy is a Chair for the international conference on Multiphoton Microscopy in the Biomedical Sciences.