University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, S. Africa (B.Sc. and M.Sc. in physics)
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois (M.Sc. in physics)
University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois (Ph.D.)
Scientific career
Fields
Electron Microscopy, Structural Biology
Bridget Olivia Carragher (born 17 June 1957) is a South African physicist specialized in
electron microscopy.
Carragher is an adjunct professor at the
Columbia University (New York City, NY) and the founder and Chief Operations Officer of NanoImaging Services, Inc. She is also the director of the National Resources for Automated Molecular Microscopy (NRAMM), director of the Simons Electron Microscopy Center at New York Structural Biology Center (New York City, NY) and PI at the National Center for CryoEM Access and Training.
Personal life
Carragher was born in
South Africa. She lived in
Ghana during her childhood and for one year in England. After earning her master's degree, she moved to the
United States and has lived there since where she is a US citizen.
Carragher has spent much of her career in developing streamlined and automated
electron microscopy (EM) methods aimed at improving both the quality of EM data and the accessibility of these techniques to the broader biological community.
After her Ph.D., she held several posts in industry and academia until moving to the Scripps Research Institute in 2001. Since 2002, she has served with Clint Potter as the director of the National Resource for Automated Molecular Microscopy (NRAMM), an NIH-funded national biotechnology research resource. The NRAMM specializes in developing and applying automated technologies for EM and providing training at all levels.
In 2007 Carragher co-founded NanoImaging Services, Inc. The company works in the area of providing microscopy services to the biopharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
In 2015 Carragher and Clint moved their academic lab from The Scripps Research Institute to the New York Structural Biology Center, where they serve as co-directors of the Simons Electron Microscopy Center. In May 2018, they were awarded a U24 grant to start the National Center for CryoEM Access and Training (NCCAT).
In 2022 she was named a Founding Technical Director of the Chan Zuckerberg Institute for Advanced Biological Imaging.[1][2]
Positions and Employment
Year
Position
1987 - 1988
Research Associate, U. Chicago
1988 - 1990
Senior Scientist, CEMAX Incorporated, Santa Clara, California
1990 - 1991
Assistant Research Neuroscientist, Dept. of Neuroscience, UCSD
1992 - 1998
Director, Optical Visualization Facility, Beckman Institute, UIUC
1994 - 2001
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Dept. of Cell and Structural Biology, UIUC
1996 - 1999
Senior Research Scientist, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, UIUC
1998 - 2001
Director, Imaging Technology Group, Beckman Institute, UIUC
2001 - 2012
Associate Professor, Dept. of Cell Biology, The Scripps Research Institute. La Jolla, CA
2003–present
Director, National Resource for Automated Molecular Microcopy (NRAMM)
2007–present
Founder and Chief Science Officer, NanoImaging Services, Inc.
2012 - 2014
Professor, Dept. of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology, The Scripps Research Institute. La Jolla, CA
2015–present
Director, Simons Electron Microscopy Center, New York Structural Biology Center, NY, NY
2015–present
Adjunct Professor, Columbia University, New York, NY
2018–present
Co-PI, National Center for CryoEM Access and Training
2022–present
Founding Technical Director, Chan Zuckerberg Institute for Advanced Biological Imaging
Other Experience and Professional Memberships
Year
Activity
1993–present
Editorial Board, Journal of Structural Biology
1993–present
Member of various NIH/NSF Study Sections
1993 - 2000
Scientific Advisory Committee, National Center for Macromolecular Imaging, Baylor College of Medicine
1993, 1995
Co-organizer, Workshop on Advanced Computing for Biological Imaging, UIUC/NCSA
1995
Co-organizer, A Hands-on Workshop on Practical Stereological Techniques, UIUC
1995–present
Member of Advisory Committee, HVEM Resource, Boulder, Co.
1996
Co-editor, Journal of Structural Biology Special Issue on “Software Resources for Image Processing and Visualization in Structural Biology”
1998–present
Member of Advisory Committee, BMIRR, Wadsworth Center, Albany, NY
1997, 1999
Vice-chair, chair, Gordon Conference on 3DEM of Macromolecules
2003
Co-organizer, Multidisciplinary Workshop on Automated Particle Selection
2003 - 2014
Co-organizer, Biennial Workshop In Molecular Microscopy
2003
Co-editor, Journal of Structural Biology, Special Issues on Automated Particle Selection and Analytical Methods
2003 - 2005
NIH BBCB Study Section
2005 - 2007
NIH MI Study Section
2005–present
Associate editor, Journal of Structural Biology
2011 - 2015
Scientific Advisory Committee, Transcontinental EM Initiative for Membrane Protein Structure
2012 - 2014
Advisory Board, National Canadian CryoEM Facility
2013 - 2015
External Advisory Committee, Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group
Throughout her career, Carragher has published 165 papers,[3][4] received several research funding
grants and owns five
patents.
Patents
Smith PE, Callahan MP, Daniel I, Potter CS, Carragher B, Suloway CJ, inventors; Robotic system for sequencing multiple specimens between a holding tray and microscope. 2005, US 2005/0107917 A1.
Mulder A, Carragher B, Potter CS, inventors; Characterization of particulates using electron microscopy and image processing methods. 2011, Provisional. Filed 8/17/2011.
Carragher B, Potter CS, Jain T, inventors; Preparation of specimen arrays on an EM grid. 2012, Provisional. Filed 1/17/2012.
Carragher B, Potter CS, Jain T, inventors; Superhydrophilic specimen grids for electron microscopy. 2012, Provisional. Filed 1/17/2012.
Carragher B, Potter CS, Jain T, Kahn P, Wiktor P, inventors; Apparatus and method for producing specimens for electron microscopy. 2012, Provisional. Filed 1/17/2012.
Carragher was an early advocate for automated methods for electron microscopy. She developed software to analyze poorly ordered sickle cell hemoglobin fibers[5] and went on to collaborate with Ron Milligan's group to develop a pipeline for helical processing (Phoelix).[6] Carragher and Potter led the development of
Leginon,[7] a system for automated control and data acquisition from an electron microscope, and
Appion,[8] a pipeline for single particle data processing.
New technologies for TEM
Carragher and her team have developed a number of technologies for transmission electron microscopy (TEM). These include Spotiton, an inkjet dispense and vitrification system for cryo-TEM,[9][10] robotic devices to load TEM specimens into the microscope,[11] liquid handling robots for controlling sample vitrification[12][13] and negative staining, and new substrates.[14]
Contributions to structural biology
Carragher has co-authored several papers in this area.[15]
Carragher's lab team includes a number of post-docs and graduate students . These researchers have contributed a number of papers to scientific journals.[16][17][18][19]
Contributions to Methodology:
Carragher has worked to validate and improve methods in the field. In particular, she has worked on a particle picking workshop,[20] the recent CTF challenge[21] and a number of workshops organized by the EMDB to discuss standards and validation.[22][23] She have also organized workshops, including the NRAMM biennial Advanced Methods Workshop.
^Carragher, B.; Bluemke, D. A.; Gabriel, B.; Potel, M. J.; Josephs, R. (1988-01-20). "Structural analysis of polymers of sickle cell hemoglobin. I. Sickle hemoglobin fibers". Journal of Molecular Biology. 199 (2): 315–331.
doi:
10.1016/0022-2836(88)90316-6.
ISSN0022-2836.
PMID3351926.
^Carragher, B.; Whittaker, M.; Milligan, R. A. (January 1996). "Helical processing using PHOELIX". Journal of Structural Biology. 116 (1): 107–112.
doi:
10.1006/jsbi.1996.0018.
ISSN1047-8477.
PMID8742731.
^Suloway, Christian; Pulokas, James; Fellmann, Denis; Cheng, Anchi; Guerra, Francisco; Quispe, Joel; Stagg, Scott; Potter, Clinton S.; Carragher, Bridget (July 2005). "Automated molecular microscopy: the new Leginon system". Journal of Structural Biology. 151 (1): 41–60.
doi:
10.1016/j.jsb.2005.03.010.
ISSN1047-8477.
PMID15890530.