Melike Lakadamyali

Scientific Report on TUM-IAS Fellowship 

The last years have taught us many things – and the last one especially, has made us aware that you cannot take long-distance interactions for granted and that diversity is greatly underappreciated. Both long-distance interactions and diversity are key to the mission of the TUM-IAS – and also happen to be at the core of the questions that the TUM-IAS Focus Group Subcellular Dynamics in Neurons has addressed over the past few years. full report

Short CV

Melike Lakadamyali has been an Assistant Professor of Physiology at the University of Pennsylvania – Perelman School of Medicine since 2017. Before this, she was a Senior Group Leader at ICFO-The Institute of Photonic Sciences (Spain). Her research focuses on the development of advanced light microscopy methods that provide high spatial and temporal resolution and the application of these methods to studies of fundamental questions in cell biology and neuroscience. In particular, her goal is to adress a central question in biology: how does the organization of proteins in space and in time impact their cellular function. To study this key question she combines cutting-edge optical and molecular-biology tools such as super-resolution nanoscopy, single molecule biophysics, microfluidics, genetic manipulation and labeling, biophysical modeling and quantitative statistical analysis. She is an author on several publications in top peer-reviewed journals including PNAS, Nature Methods, Cell. She has received multiple European research grants. Of note is the European Research Council Starting Grant, ERC-StG. She has also received the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) Young Investigator award. She has co-organized symposia and chaired sessions at international conferences including the American Society for Cell Biology meeting, and delivered several invited talks at international conferences and workshops. She is an Editorial Board Member of Scientific Reports and she is on the advisory board of BioQuant in Heidelberg. She has received her PhD in 2006 from Harvard University.


Selected Awards

  • 2016, Finalist for La Vanguardia Newspaper, best research in Spain award
  • 2014, Ramon y Cajal Fellowship, Spanish Ministry of Education
  • 2013, EMBO Young Investigator Award
  • 2001, Dean’s Honored Graduate Student (GPA: 4.0/4.0), University of Texas at Austin, USA
  • 1997, Cyprus-America-Scholarship Program and Fulbright Commission scholar

Research Interests

Super-resolution nanoscopy, single molecule biophysics, nuclear organization, synaptic organization, intracellular trafficking.


Selected Publications

  • Bar-Shira, Ossnat; Maor, Ronnie; Chechik, Gal: Gene Expression Switching of Receptor Subunits in Human Brain Development. PLOS Computational Biology 11 (12), 2015, e1004559
  • Ricci, Maria Aurelia; Manzo, Carlo; García-Parajo, María Filomena; Lakadamyali, Melike; Cosma, Maria Pia: Chromatin Fibers Are Formed by Heterogeneous Groups of Nucleosomes In Vivo. Cell 160 (6), 2015, 1145-1158 
  • Tam, Johnny; Cordier, Guillaume Alan; Borbely, Joseph Steven; Sandoval Álvarez, Ángel; Lakadamyali, Melike: Cross-Talk-Free Multi-Color STORM Imaging Using a Single Fluorophore. PLoS ONE 9 (7), 2014, e101772
  • Durisic, Nela; Laparra-Cuervo, Lara; Sandoval-Álvarez, Ángel; Borbely, Joseph Steven; Lakadamyali, Melike: Single-molecule evaluation of fluorescent protein photoactivation efficiency using an in vivo nanotemplate. Nature Methods 11 (2), 2014, 156-162 
  • Bálint, Štefan; Verdeny Vilanova, Ione; Sandoval Álvarez, Ángel; Lakadamyali, Melike: Correlative live-cell and superresolution microscopy reveals cargo transport dynamics at microtubule intersections. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110 (9), 2013, 3375-3380 
  • Lakadamyali, Melike; Babcock, Hazen; Bates, Mark; Zhuang, Xiaowei; Lichtman, Jeff: 3D Multicolor Super-Resolution Imaging Offers Improved Accuracy in Neuron Tracing. PLoS ONE 7 (1), 2012, e30826 
  • Lakadamyali, Melike; Rust, Michael J.; Zhuang, Xiaowei: Ligands for Clathrin-Mediated Endocytosis Are Differentially Sorted into Distinct Populations of Early Endosomes. Cell 124 (5), 2006, 997-1009 
  • Rust, Michael J; Lakadamyali, Melike; Zhang, Feng; Zhuang, Xiaowei: Assembly of endocytic machinery around individual influenza viruses during viral entry. Nat Struct Mol Biol 11 (6), 2004, 567-573
  • Lakadamyali, M.; Rust, M. J.; Babcock, H. P.; Zhuang, X.: Visualizing infection of individual influenza viruses. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100 (16), 2003, 9280-9285

See also the full list of publications.