Uncovering the
fundamentals of life
Doctoral student John Calise peers deep into subcellular structures
BY TYLER FRANCISCHINE • PHOTO BY JESSE S. JONES
John Calise remembers the first time he
peered into a microscope. The National
Science Foundation graduate fellow and
fourth-year UF College of Medicine doctoral
student in the molecular cell biology
concentration was surprised to find that the
sight stirred something deep within him.
“I was hooked from the very beginning, from
the first time I looked under a microscope
at fluorescently labeled cells,” he recalls.
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“There is a certain beauty there. It’s like art to
capture something at that molecular level.”
Calise is one of only a handful of predoctoral
fellows at the UF College of Medicine.
By securing funding for their research
from prestigious and federally funded
organizations like the National Science
Foundation and the National Institutes of
Health, Calise and his colleagues prove the
quality and viability of their work long before
they receive their doctoral degrees and enter
the workforce.
Calise’s days are filled with studying life at
the molecular level. He estimates he spends
50 to 60 hours each week working in the
laboratory and reading at home about cell
biology. He wouldn’t have it any other way
— he’s fascinated by the elusive possibility of
discovery that could strike at any moment his
eye is glued to the microscope.
“When you do an experiment and look under
the microscope — if you get a good result —
in that moment, you’re the only person in the
world who has that unique knowledge,” Calise
says. “Those feelings are few and far between.
You live for those moments.”
Calise’s research focuses on subcellular
structures called IMPDH filaments that were
only discovered in the mid-2000s. His thesis
offers insight into the circumstances under
which the cell forms these structures and
what the structures do.
“We know that these structures may be
important for highly proliferating cells
like immune or stem cells,” he says. “If it
turns out that these structures are playing a
fundamental role in cell division, that could
be a huge discovery. Down the road, we
could somehow manipulate cells to block
or promote proliferation to improve upon
therapies. These are the fundamentals of cell
biology, so it could be widely applicable.”
After graduating from UF with a degree in
business, Calise took a job as a lab technician
for Edward Chan, PhD, a professor in the
UF College of Dentistry Department of Oral
Biology and the UF College of Medicine
Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology.
Calise built his laboratory toolkit piece by
piece, observing and learning from Chan’s
graduate students. After a year or two, he felt
confident of the path his career would take.
Now, after eight years spent working in
Chan’s lab, Calise credits his peers in the
field of cell biology for propelling him
forward in his unabating search for answers
under the microscope.
“There’s a small community that studies
these similar subcellular structures, and we
see each other at least once a year,” Calise
says. “We motivate each other to learn things
that no one else in the world knows, to
become one of the world’s experts in your
topic. I want to contribute to uncovering the
fundamentals of life.”
College News
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