Physicist
Harald Frederick Hess (born September 12, 1955) is an American
physicist and Senior Group Leader at
Howard Hughes Medical Institute 's
Janelia Research Campus , known for his work in
scanning probe microscopy ,
light microscopy and
electron microscopy .
[1]
[2]
Education
Hess earned his BS degree in
Physics from the
University of Chicago in 1977 before pursuing further studies at
Princeton University , where he obtained his PhD in Physics in 1982.
[3]
Career and research
As a
postdoctoral researcher at
MIT from 1982 until 1986, Hess focused his research on trapping hydrogen atoms and achieving
Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC). During this time, he developed the concept of evaporative cooling as a means to achieve BEC, which was a significant contribution to the field and ultimately led to the awarding of the 2001
Nobel Prize in Physics .
[4]
[5]
Afterward, Hess joined
Bell Labs as technical staff member. During his time there, he designed and developed a range of low-temperature
scanning probe microscopes to visualize various physics phenomena, including vortices in
superconductors .
After 1997, he spent eight years in industry at
KLA-Tencor , where he focused on developing advanced equipment for the production and inspection of hard disk drives and semiconductors.
In 2005, he and his colleague
Eric Betzig discovered photoactivatable fluorescent proteins and invented PALM (
photoactivated localization microscopy ), which enabled the visualization of
cell structures beyond the
diffraction limit . The PALM was constructed in a
La Jolla condominium,
[6] underwent testing at the
National Institute of Health , and contributed to the awarding of the 2014
Nobel Prize in Chemistry .
[7]
[8]
At the
Janelia Research Campus of the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute , Hess further developed PALM into a 3D
super-resolution microscopy technique and is currently exploring its potential applications for
cell biology research.
[9]
[10]
[11] Additionally, Hess is actively working on developing 3D
electron microscopy techniques for volumetric imaging of cells and neural
tissue .
[12]
[13]
[14]
Overall, Hess's research centers on developing new forms of microscopy and refining existing technologies to uncover new physical or biological characteristics.
[15]
Awards and honours
References
^
"Hess Lab" .
^
"Harald F. Hess" .
^
https://www.invent.org/sites/default/files/2024-01/2024_Fact_Sheet_Harald_Hess.pdf
^
"The Nobel Prize in Physics 2001" .
^
"Harald Hess" .
^
"The Power of Science Philanthropy" .
^ Betzig, Eric; Patterson, George H.; Sougrat, Rachid; Lindwasser, O. Wolf; Olenych, Scott; Bonifacino, Juan S.; Davidson, Michael W.; Lippincott-Schwartz, Jennifer; Hess, Harald F. (2006).
"Imaging Intracellular Fluorescent Proteins at Nanometer Resolution" . Science . 313 (5793): 1642–1645.
Bibcode :
2006Sci...313.1642B .
doi :
10.1126/science.1127344 .
PMID
16902090 .
^
"The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014" .
^ Manley, Suliana; Gillette, Jennifer M.; Patterson, George H.; Shroff, Hari; Hess, Harald F.; Betzig, Eric; Lippincott-Schwartz, Jennifer (2008).
"High-density mapping of single-molecule trajectories with photoactivated localization microscopy" . Nature Methods . 5 (2): 155–157.
doi :
10.1038/nmeth.1176 .
PMID
18193054 .
S2CID
1101468 .
^ Kopek, Benjamin G.; Shtengel, Gleb; Xu, C. Shan; Clayton, David A.; Hess, Harald F. (2012).
"Correlative 3D superresolution fluorescence and electron microscopy reveal the relationship of mitochondrial nucleoids to membranes" . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 109 (16): 6136–6141.
Bibcode :
2012PNAS..109.6136K .
doi :
10.1073/pnas.1121558109 .
PMC
3341004 .
PMID
22474357 .
^ Shtengel, Gleb; Galbraith, James A.; Galbraith, Catherine G.; Lippincott-Schwartz, Jennifer; Gillette, Jennifer M.; Manley, Suliana; Sougrat, Rachid; Waterman, Clare M.; Kanchanawong, Pakorn; Davidson, Michael W.; Fetter, Richard D.; Hess, Harald F. (2009).
"Interferometric fluorescent super-resolution microscopy resolves 3D cellular ultrastructure" . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 106 (9): 3125–3130.
Bibcode :
2009PNAS..106.3125S .
doi :
10.1073/pnas.0813131106 .
PMC
2637278 .
PMID
19202073 .
^
"The Expansion of Volume Electron Microscopy" .
^ Hoffman, David P.; Shtengel, Gleb; Xu, C. Shan; Campbell, Kirby R.; Freeman, Melanie; Wang, Lei; Milkie, Daniel E.; Pasolli, H. Amalia; Iyer, Nirmala; Bogovic, John A.; Stabley, Daniel R.; Shirinifard, Abbas; Pang, Song; Peale, David; Schaefer, Kathy; Pomp, Wim; Chang, Chi-Lun; Lippincott-Schwartz, Jennifer; Kirchhausen, Tom; Solecki, David J.; Betzig, Eric; Hess, Harald F. (2020).
"Correlative three-dimensional super-resolution and block-face electron microscopy of whole vitreously frozen cells" . Science . 367 (6475).
doi :
10.1126/science.aaz5357 .
PMC
7339343 .
PMID
31949053 .
^ Xu, C. Shan; Pang, Song; Shtengel, Gleb; Müller, Andreas; Ritter, Alex T.; Hoffman, Huxley K.; Takemura, Shin-ya; Lu, Zhiyuan; Pasolli, H. Amalia; Iyer, Nirmala; Chung, Jeeyun; Bennett, Davis; Weigel, Aubrey V.; Freeman, Melanie; Van Engelenburg, Schuyler B.; Walther, Tobias C.; Farese, Robert V.; Lippincott-Schwartz, Jennifer; Mellman, Ira; Solimena, Michele; Hess, Harald F. (2021).
"An open-access volume electron microscopy atlas of whole cells and tissues" . Nature . 599 (7883): 147–151.
Bibcode :
2021Natur.599..147X .
doi :
10.1038/s41586-021-03992-4 .
PMC
9004664 .
PMID
34616045 .
^
"Research" .
^
"APS Fellow Archive" .
^
https://www.aaas.org/fellows/2016
^
https://www.aaas.org/news/2016-aaas-fellows-honored-advancing-science-serve-society
^
"Harald Hess" .
^
"Janelia Scientist Harald Hess Elected to NAS Membership" .
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"Harald F. Hess" .
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"15 Innovators to be Inducted as the National Inventors Hall of Fame Class of 2024" .
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"Eric Betzig and Harald Hess to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame" .
^
"HHMI Janelia scientists Eric Betzig and Harald Hess to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame" .
External links