Cell scientist to watch – Gokul Upadhyayula

Abstract

ABSTRACT Srigokul (Gokul) Upadhyayula is Scientific Director of the Advanced BioImaging Center (ABC) and an Assistant Professor in Residence of Cell Biology, Development and Physiology at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, USA. Gokul completed his PhD in the bioengineering department with Valentine Vullev at UC Riverside, where he built his first microscope. Inspired to apply his fascination with microscopy and image analysis to understanding biological phenomena, he subsequently joined the group of Tomas Kirchhausen at Harvard Medical School as a postdoc and collaborated with Eric Betzig at Janelia Research Campus on major advances in adaptive optical lattice light-sheet microscopy (LLSM) technology to study fundamental cellular processes such as clathrin-mediated endocytosis and nuclear pore reformation. In 2019, he moved to UC Berkeley to build the ABC together with Eric Betzig. The ABC aims to enhance the accessibility and adoption of data-heavy imaging technologies like LLSM. Gokul's team combines expertise in biology, chemistry, engineering, microscopy and computational science to provide resources and tools that allow biologists to extract meaningful insights from imaging data. We spoke with Gokul over Zoom to learn about his career path, the challenges that come with handling massive bioimaging datasets and the vision of the ABC for the future of bioimaging.