Julie Suzanne Biteen is a Canadian-born American chemist who is professor of chemistry and biophysics at the University of Michigan. Her research considers the development of imaging systems for biological systems. She was named the

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Sessler Distinguished Alumni Lecturer in 2021.

Early life and education

Biteen was born in Montreal. Her father worked in Human Resources and her mother was a librarian. As a child she enjoyed mathematics and thought that she might become a civil engineer. During her undergraduate studies she became fascinated by fundamental scientific research. Biteen majored in chemistry at Princeton University and worked under the supervision of Hershel Rabitz, where she studied maps for quantum control. After completing her bachelor's degree she moved to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where she worked toward a master's in applied physics. She stayed at Caltech for her doctoral research, working alongside Harry Atwater and Nathan Lewis. Her doctoral research considered nanoparticle

plasmonics Plasmonics or nanoplasmonics refers to the generation, detection, and manipulation of signals at optical frequencies along metal-dielectric interfaces in the nanometer scale. Inspired by photonics, plasmonics follows the trend of miniaturizing opt ...

and

quantum dot Quantum dots (QDs) are semiconductor particles a few nanometres in size, having light, optical and electronics, electronic properties that differ from those of larger particles as a result of quantum mechanics. They are a central topic in nanote ...

optoelectronics. She joined

as a postdoctoral scholar, where she worked on

super-resolution imaging Super-resolution imaging (SR) is a class of techniques that enhance (increase) the resolution of an imaging system. In optical SR the diffraction limit of systems is transcended, while in geometrical SR the resolution of digital imaging sensors i ...

with

William E. Moerner William Esco Moerner (born June 24, 1953) is an American physical chemist and chemical physicist with current work in the biophysics and imaging of single molecules. He is credited with achieving the first optical detection and spectroscopy of a ...

. As a postdoc she developed photoactivated localization microscopy systems to image ''

Caulobacter crescentus ''Caulobacter crescentus'' is a Gram-negative, oligotrophic bacterium widely distributed in fresh water lakes and streams. The taxon is more properly known as ''Caulobacter vibrioides'' (Henrici and Johnson 1935). ''C. crescentus'' is an importa ...

'', acquiring the first images of

MreB MreB is a protein found in bacteria that has been identified as a homologue of actin, as indicated by similarities in tertiary structure and conservation of active site peptide sequence. The conservation of protein structure suggests the common a ...

, a protein found in bacteria.

Research and career

Biteen was appointed to the faculty at the University of Michigan in 2010. She investigates microbial cell biology using advanced imaging techniques such as single-molecule and super-resolution imaging. In particular, single-molecule microscopy can provide nanoscale information about biological processes. She has used these techniques to understand how proteins recognise and bind histones during transcriptional silencing and to reveal information about the gut microbiome. At the same time she has studied how plasmonic metal nanoantennas reshape the fluorescence of nearby molecules.

Awards and honors

* 2009 University of Michigan Biological Sciences Scholar * 2009 Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award * 2013 NSF CAREER Award * 2015 Moore Foundation Scialog Fellow * 2016 Journal of Physical Chemistry B Lectureship Award * 2017 Biophysical Society Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award * 2020 NSF Award for Special Creativity * 2021 Sessler Distinguished Alumni Lectureship at Stanford

Selected publications

* * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Biteen, Julie Living people Scientists from Montreal California Institute of Technology alumni Princeton University alumni University of Michigan faculty American women chemists 21st-century American chemists Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women scientists Canadian expatriates in the United States