The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) has named Xiaowei Zhuang, Ph.D., winner of the 2021 Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences for pioneering the development of super-resolution microscopy and genome-scale imaging showing new spatial and functional organizations of molecules and cells. Dr. Zhuang’s innovative work with microscopy has enabled researchers to visualize with high resolution the positioning of and interactions between molecules in a cell, as well as the spatial organization of distinct types of cells in tissues. Her discoveries have made a significant impact all across the field of biology, with seminal applications to cell biology.
Visualizing the interior structures of cells has been a central goal of scientists since the late 16th century. How precisely these structures can be defined is limited by the physical properties of light itself, the so-called diffraction limit of light. Dr. Zhuang developed a super-resolution imaging method, Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy (STORM), which overcomes the diffraction limit and permits nanometer (one-billionth of a meter)-scale resolution. Using this method, Dr. Zhuang has identified never-before-seen structures in nerve cells in the brain.
