New episode is out 
The premise is really simple: each time the fantastic hosts Tim and Giannis invite one senior academic to discuss their favourite publication from the recent literature.
Pour yourself a nice glass of wine and join us as we delve into recent literature, and perhaps learn a little from the minds that have shaped the field.
We’ll find out what caught their eye, and why it is worth taking a closer look at this particular publication. Along the way, we will learn about their publication strategies and possibly even glimpse into the future of this amazing field of research.
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Latest Edition 10/2023
Episode #9: Mikhail Shapiro, Pasadena
In this episode we welcome our famous guest Mikhail Shapiro from Caltech. Mikhail exquisitely combines ultrasound with synthetic biology for gene regulation, imaging, and therapy – and synthetic biology is surely the common thread in this podcast edition.
We discover how an engineered receptor and an intracellular signalling domain, known as ‘synNotch’ can be used to visualise cell-cell communication in vivo. And how this system can be used to identify immune-cancer cell interactions, why it provides far more information than just knowing where the immune cells reside, and the various merits of the three different reporter genes employed for visualisation across scales.
We also reveal some insider information into the review process for the selected paper from the senior author John Ronald. Along the way, we speculate why the synNotch system improves NK cell kill and Tim ends up dreaming of sheep jumping over logic gates 
!
Selected publication:
Visualizing cell–cell communication using synthetic notch activated MRI.
TianDuo Wang, Yuanxin Chen, Nivin N Nystrom, Shirley Liu, Yanghao Fu, Francisco M Martinez, Timothy J Scholl, and John A Ronald. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Mar 14; 120(11):e2216901120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2216901120.
About the Guest
Mikhail is the Max Delbrück professor of chemical engineering, director of the Center for Molecular and Cellular Medicine at California Institute of Technology, and investigator at Howard Hughs Medical Institute.
His lab’s work focuses on the use of Biomolecular Ultrasound for Non-Invasive Imaging and Control of Cellular Function. They have pioneered the use of gas-based vesicles, originally found in buoyant microbes, as reporter genes and biosensors. His lab applies these tools to problems in synthetic biology, neuroscience, cancer, immunology and the mammalian microbiome. Additionally, they are able to remotely control gene expression and cellular function in vivo using focused ultrasound, with implications for diagnostics and therapy. Read more about the ShapiroLab here.
As well his large contributions to the field, Mikhail brings an element of fun and vibrancy to what he does, which we greatly appreciate.
Check here for all podcast editions
About the Hosts
Tim Witney is a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow and Reader in Molecular Imaging at King’s College London’s School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences. His Group’s research focuses on the development of next-generation imaging tools for cancer diagnosis, monitoring of therapeutic response, and detection of drug resistance. Tim has been serving as member of the ESMI Board since 2018, and became Secretary in 2023.
Giannis Zacharakis is a Principal Researcher at the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser – Foundation for Research and Technology (FORTH – IESL) in Heraklion, Crete and the Head of the Laboratory for Biophotonics and Molecular Imaging. Giannis was elected as ESMI Vice President in 2018 and served as President from 2019 to 2020.
About the music
- Andreas Jacobs – violin
- Jacob Niller – accordion
- Wolfgang Platen – contrabass
All of you who attended the EMIM 2021 in Göttingen certainly remember Andreas – one of the society’s founding fathers and past presidents – on stage playing the violin. Together with two young, talented musicians, he recorded Olecht Konflytt* again for the special occassion of becoming the “Dive into Imaging Science” theme – we could not be more grateful!
*composer: Guido Jäger “Olecht Konflytt”
LATEST Edition | 10/2023
Guest: Mikhail Shapiro, Pasadena
Visualizing cell–cell communication using synthetic notch activated MRI.
TianDuo Wang, Yuanxin Chen, Nivin N Nystrom, Shirley Liu, Yanghao Fu, Francisco M Martinez, Timothy J Scholl, and John A Ronald. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Mar 14; 120(11):e2216901120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2216901120.