Research Advisors

Stowers research advisors function as internal consultants on research projects requiring highly specialized technical expertise. They work closely with scientific core centers and other research advisors to develop and apply novel methods to solve biological problems. The majority of research advisor-supported projects are multidisciplinary collaborations and research advisors help manage and coordinate projects that require input from multiple labs and core facilities. The level of multidisciplinary support research advisors provide to Stowers investigators is unprecedented in the academic community.


 

Boris Rubinstein
Biomathematics
bru@stowers.org
Research website

As a biomathematician, Boris Rubinstein primarily assists Stowers researchers with complex data analysis, modeling and numerical/symbolic programming but his expertise extends to biophysical and systems biology questions, image processing and analysis as well as protein interaction network analyses.

Born and raised in Russia, Rubinstein received a M.Sc. in nuclear physics from the Ural State Technical University in Sverdlovsk and a Ph.D. in optics from Irkutsk State University in Siberia, Russia. After two years at the Metal Physics Institute, USSR Academy of Sciences in Sverdlovsk, he accepted a postdoctoral position at the Technion in Haifa, Israel. After a short stint at a small start-up company called Kernel Knowledge, where he helped to develop a widely used symbolic computer algebra software Mathematica, he returned to the Technion as a research engineer.

In 2000, he accepted a postdoctoral position at Northwestern University, Chicago, where he focused on the numerical stability analysis of two-phase hydrodynamic flows and discovered a new type of crystallization process dynamics. Prior to joining the Stowers Institute as a biomathematician in 2007, Rubinstein spent five years in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Davis, where he became interested in biological questions and started to study the motion of living cells. During that time he also solved an old number theory problem posed by Euler in 1748.

 

 

Brian Slaughter, Ph.D.
Molecular Microscopy
brs@stowers.org

Research advisor Brian Slaughter assists Stowers Investigators with the application of molecular imaging technologies to model organisms including budding yeast and Drosophila. Areas of expertise include fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS), fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET), fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP), and single molecule methods. He has successfully applied these methods to examine protein interactions, protein dynamics, and stoichiometry of large protein complexes in living cells. In addition, he has extensive experience in in vivo gene tagging and in vitro fluorophore conjugation.

Slaughter received a dual B.A. in chemistry and mathematics from William Jewell College and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Kansas. He completed postdoctoral studies with Rong Li at the Stowers Institute before transitioning to the role of research advisor in 2010. As a research advisor, he has collaborated with Stowers investigators to merge advanced imaging methods with live-cell systems.


 

Jay Unruh, Ph.D.
Molecular Microscopy
jru@stowers.org
Research website

Research advisor Jay Unruh specializes in the use of advanced microscopy to study protein interactions and dynamics. This information is crucial to the understanding of complex cellular processes governing the establishment of polarity in developing embryos and cell cycle progression. He utilizes advanced microscopy techniques such as fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET), fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) and fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) along with computational modeling.

Unruh received a B.S. in biochemistry from John Brown University and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Kansas. He completed his postdoctoral studies in the Laboratory of Fluorescence Dynamics at the University of California, Irvine before joining the Stowers Institute as a research specialist in 2008. In 2010, Unruh took on the role of research advisor and since then has applied his extensive expertise in advanced microscopy techniques to a wide variety of model organisms studied at the Stowers Institute.