Hannah Yi

cellular Biophysics

Hannah Yi

Chemistry Graduate Student

MS in Chemistry, University of Chicago, 2017
BS in Chemistry, The George Washington University, 2016

mail hannahyi@uchicago.edu

Research Interests

insulin trafficking/ image analysis/ microscopy

I am studying insulin transport in healthy and diseased pancreatic beta-cells. The biological pathway for insulin and blood glucose regulation is widely studied for applications in preventative diabetes mellitus. Yet on a smaller scale, how insulin is stored and trafficked within beta-cells is less understood. We are interested in studying intracellular insulin transport to identify mechanistic deficiencies which could lead to secretion or signaling defects. I use fluorescent microscopy to measure fluorescent protein labeled insulin vesicles (granules) within live cells. This is interesting from a technology perspective because our lab is always developing or optimizing our microscopes for dynamic imaging of small ~200nm targets. Most recently, we are using Multifocal Microscopy for fast volumetric imaging. I develop custom image analysis approaches to quantify and analyze the videos that are recorded on our conventional and home-built systems. 

Recent News