Joseph E. Mazurkiewicz, PhD

As Director of the AMC Imaging Core Facility, I am responsible for the maintenance and development of the several microscopes in the AMC Imaging Core Facility that includes a Zeiss LSM880 NLO with Airyscan Super Resolution Inverted Scanning Confocal Microscope system. Researchers are trained to become independent users of the microscopes and image acquisition software with an eye to ensure collection of high-quality images.

Dr. Mazurkiewicz is involved in a variety of collaborations that utilize advanced imaging technologies that include confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM), 2-photon scanning microscopy, Total Internal Reflection Florescence Microscopy (TIRFM) and Stimulated Emission Depletion (STED) microscopy.  In these collaboration several advanced biophysical imaging modalities have been applied that include, FRET and FRAP, bimolecular fluorescence complementation analyses (BIFC), and fluorescence fluctuation spectroscopy methods that include confocal Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS), and Raster Image Correlation Spectroscopy (RICS).  In the imaging core facility, we are currently involved in developing Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging-FRET (FLIM-FRET) imaging to visualize and quantitate ligand-receptor (target engagement) in vitro and in vivo and FLIM imaging to assess the metabolic state of cells and tissues using endogenous sources of fluorescence.

Among my current collaborations, two studies are of most recent interest:

1. Pathogenesis of Friedreich ataxia (FRDA) an autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disorder that affects children and young adults.  CLSM on post-mortem FRDA brain and DRG sections is the prime imaging modality used.

2. Oligomerization and trafficking of Class A neurotransmitter G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR) and the gonadotropin GPCR using FCS, PCH and FRET and using FCS, PCH, BIFC and FRET.  G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR) are a prominent class of plasma membrane proteins that regulate physiological responses to a wide variety of external stimuli and therapeutic agents.  Each GPCR was C-terminally labeled with YFP or GFP or mCherry and expressed on the plasma membrane of HEK293 cells in live cell culture, either singly or in pairs.

While Dr. Mazurkiewicz is conducting research in collaboration with many investigators he is not currently accepting students into his lab.