Derk Joester, PhD
Associate Professor, Materials Science and Engineering; Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Research Program
Cancer-Focused Research
My research has been focused on understanding the mechanisms by which cells grow crystals; both in cell culture (see section C.2), and in cell-free, in vitro model systems (section C.3). An integral part of our research effort is to develop quantitative imaging approaches to study structure and composition of the mineralizing cell and the resulting biomineral (section C.1). In the course of this work, we pioneered the application of atom probe tomography (APT) on biominerals and remain leaders in this area. My involvement with the Cancer Center developed out of a relatively recent effort focused on cryo-EM imaging in my group.