Scot C. Kuo, an associate professor of biomedical engineering and cell biology, focuses on cell motility and cell mechanics, using a novel, laser-based optical tools. He is known for developing technologies to better understand the mechanical functions of cells, including optical tweezers, a tool to measure forces between and within molecules, and laser-based nano-tracking, an instrument that helped demonstrate that the bacterial pathogen Listeria moves in a jerky, step-like fashion when it infects cells. He is the director of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Microscope Facility and director of imaging at the Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences and is the principal investigator of the Advanced Imaging Technologies for Cell & Subcellular Studies Lab.
He received a BA at Harvard University in 1982 and a PhD – both in Biochemistry – at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1988.
