Selvin wins Marine Biological Laboratory Nikon Fellowship

Professor of Physics and of Biophysics Paul R. Selvin has been selected for the 2010 Nikon Fellowship at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Selvin will use the fellowship to carry out collaborative research with biologists at MBL on ion channels associated with nicotine addiction, learning, and memory.

Selvin studies the structure and dynamics of biological macromolecules using fluorescence. Specific biological systems of interest include molecular motors (conventional and unconventional myosins, kinesins, dyneins), voltage-controlled ion-channels (Shaker potassium), and more recently, genomics. His research involves both technology development and biological applications.

With his students, Selvin has pioneered a host of novel single-molecule fluorescence techniques, including FIONA (Fluorescence Imaging with One Nanometer Accuracy), DOPI (Defocused Orientation and Position Imaging of myosin V), SHREC (Single molecule High REsolution with Colocalization, also known as 2D-FIONA), and SHRIMP (Super High Resolution IMaging with Photobleaching).

Selvin received a bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Michigan and a PhD in physics from the University of California, Berkeley. After working as a research chemist at the Department of Chemistry, UC Berkeley, he became a staff scientist in the Life Sciences Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He joined the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois in 1997.

Among his many awards and honors, Selvin received the 1999 Fluorescence Young Investigator Award (Biophysical Society), the 2004 Michael & Kate Bárány Award for Young Investigators (Biophysical Society), and the 2006 Sackler International Prize in Biophysics. The University of Illinois named him a University Scholar in 2008. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society.