Jason Swedlow is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

-born

cell biologist Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living an ...

and light microscopist who is Professor of Quantitative Cell Biology at the School of Life Sciences,

University of Dundee The University of Dundee is a public research university based in Dundee, Scotland. It was founded as a university college in 1881 with a donation from the prominent Baxter family of textile manufacturers. The institution was, for most of its ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. He is a co-founder of the Open Microscopy Environment and Glencoe Software. In 2021, he joined Wellcome Leap as a Program Director.

Education and career

Swedlow received a B.A. in Chemistry from

Brandeis University Brandeis University () is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located within the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational university, Bra ...

Waltham, Massachusetts Waltham ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, and was an early center for the labor movement as well as a major contributor to the Technological and industrial history of the United States, American Industrial Revoluti ...

, in 1982. He then earned a Ph.D. in

Biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...

from

UCSF The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life ...

in 1994, under the direction of

David Agard David A. Agard is a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. He earned his B.S. in molecular biochemistry and biophysics from Yale University and his Ph.D. in biochemistry, biological chemistry fro ...

and John Sedat. After a postdoctoral fellowship with

Tim Mitchison Timothy John Mitchison is a cell biologist and systems biologist and Hasib Sabbagh Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School in the United States. He is known for his discovery, with Marc Kirschner, of dynamic instability in micr ...

at UCSF and then

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is the third oldest medical school in the Un ...

, Swedlow established his own laboratory in 1998 at the Wellcome Trust Biocentre,

, as a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow. He was awarded a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship in 2002 and named Professor of Quantitative Cell Biology in 2007. From 2021 to 2024, he has a part-time secondment as a Program Director at Wellcome Leap, running the Delta Tissue Program. He was named a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

in 2012 and appointed an Honorary OBE in 2021.

Research

Swedlow's research focuses on mechanisms and regulation of

chromosome A chromosome is a package of DNA containing part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes, the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with nucleosome-forming packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells, the most import ...

segregation during mitotic

cell division Cell division is the process by which a parent cell (biology), cell divides into two daughter cells. Cell division usually occurs as part of a larger cell cycle in which the cell grows and replicates its chromosome(s) before dividing. In eukar ...

and the development of software tools for accessing, processing, sharing and publishing large scientific image datasets. He leads OME, an international consortium that develops and releases open source software for biological imaging and Glencoe Software, which commercialises and customises OME technology for use in academic and biopharmaceutical research (e.g., Columbus from

PerkinElmer PerkinElmer, Inc., previously styled Perkin-Elmer, is an American global corporation that was founded in 1937 and originally focused on precision optics. Over the years it went into and out of several different businesses via acquisitions and di ...

, CellLibrarian from Yokogawa, and Amira from

Thermo Fisher Scientific Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is an American life science and clinical research company. It is a global supplier of analytical instruments, clinical development solutions, specialty diagnostics, laboratory, pharmaceutical and biotechnology s ...

. He participates in Euro-BioImaging, Global BioImaging, and is co-Founder of BioImagingUK, a consortium of UK imaging scientists that develop, use, or administer imaging solutions for life sciences research. Using OME technology, he has collaborated with

EMBL-EBI The European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) is an intergovernmental organization (IGO) which, as part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) family, focuses on research and services in bioinformatics. It is located on the Well ...

to develop the Image Data Resource, a public data resource for reference images from bioimaging.

Teaching

Swedlow has served as Faculty (since 1997) and Co-Director (20092014) of the Analytical and Quantitative Light Microscopy Course at the

Marine Biological Laboratory The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is an international center for research and education in biological and environmental science. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution that was independent ...

Woods Hole Woods Hole is a census-designated place in the town of Falmouth in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. It lies at the extreme southwestern corner of Cape Cod, near Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands. The population was 78 ...

, Massachusetts, and participates as Faculty in the NCBS Bangalore Microscopy Course.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swedlow, Jason Living people Harvard Medical School alumni 21st-century American biologists Brandeis University alumni University of California, San Francisco alumni American emigrants to Scotland 1961 births Academics of the University of Dundee Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Scientists from Los Angeles