Bridget Carragher
Bridget Olivia Carragher is a South African physicist specialized in electron microscopy.
Carragher is an adjunct professor at the Columbia University and the founder and Chief Operations Officer of NanoImaging Services, Inc. She is also the director of the National Resources for Automated Molecular Microscopy, director of the Simons Electron Microscopy Center at New York Structural Biology Center 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 is married and has two children.
Education
Carragher studied physics at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, from 1975 to 1981. She spent a year at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, and graduated with a MSc in physics. In 1987 she gained her PhD in physics from University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.Career
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, 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.
In 2022 she was named a Founding Technical Director of the Chan Zuckerberg Institute for Advanced Biological Imaging.
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 2014–present | Chair, EMDB Committee for cryoEM map challenge |
| 2015–present | Member, wwPDB Integrative/Hybrid Method Task Force: Federation Subgroup |
| 2015–present | Member, Diamond Scientific Advisory Committee |
| 2015–present | Member, RCSB Protein Data Bank Advisory Committee |
| 2015–present | Member, External Advisory Board, National Center for X-ray Tomography |
| 2016–present | Editorial Board, Cell Chemical Biology |
| 2017–present | Member, NCXT Advisory Committee |
| 2017–present | Member, International Scientific Advisory Board, Max Planck Institute, Frankfurt |
| 2017–present | External Advisory Board, UTSW multi-user cryoEM facility |
| 2017 | Honorary Fellow of the Royal Microscopy Society |
| 2017–present | Editorial Board, Biophysical Journal |
| 2018–present | External Advisory Board, Harvard multi-user cryoEM facility |
Contribution to Science
Throughout her career, Carragher has published 165 papers, 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.
Contributions to the EM field
Additional selected contributions to the EM field
''CryoEM automation''
Carragher was an early advocate for automated methods for electron microscopy. She developed software to analyze poorly ordered sickle cell hemoglobin fibers and went on to collaborate with Ron Milligan's group to develop a pipeline for helical processing. Carragher and Potter led the development of, a system for automated control and data acquisition from an electron microscope, and, 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. These include Spotiton, an inkjet dispense and vitrification system for cryo-TEM, robotic devices to load TEM specimens into the microscope, liquid handling robots for controlling sample vitrification and negative staining, and new substrates.''Contributions to structural biology''
Carragher has co-authored several papers in this area.Carragher's lab team includes a number of post-docs and graduate students. These researchers have contributed a number of papers to scientific journals.
''Contributions to Methodology:''
Carragher has worked to validate and improve methods in the field. In particular, she has worked on a particle picking workshop, the recent CTF challenge and a number of workshops organized by the EMDB to discuss standards and validation. She have also organized workshops, including the NRAMM biennial Advanced Methods Workshop.Awards
In 2019, Carragher and Philip E Batson were awarded the 2019 Microscopy Society of America Distinguished Scientist Award.In 2022, Carragher was awarded The Biophysical Society Innovation Award.