Ali Kinkhabwala

Dr. Ali Kinkhabwala is a physicist by training, having obtained his PhD in physics from Columbia University for his landmark studies of the first-ever high-resolution X-ray spectra of regions surrounding supermassive black holes. Despite a successful thesis in astrophysics, he was inspired by the rapid developments in biology, in particular in quantitative microscopy approaches based on novel fluorescence tools, to make the switch to biology for his postdoctoral investigations. He worked first at the Rockefeller University on synthetic biology using fluorescence as a readout and then at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology, where he combined advanced microscopy approaches (confocal, FRET/FLIM, FCS/FCCS, FRAP, EM), wet lab methods, and quantitative data analysis to shed light on important cellular signaling processes, with a focus on cancer signaling. He joined Miltenyi Biotec in 2016, where he has been responsible for technology development of the MACSima Imaging System, contributing significantly to its successful launch as well as to multiple patents and publications (e.g. Kinkhabwala et al., Scientific Reports 12, 1911, 2022). His central focus at Miltenyi has been the development of more sensitive, quantitative, and higher-resolution approaches to spatial biology, with a recent example being his development of a uniquely powerful method for discriminating specific signal from non-specific background in every pixel of an immunofluorescence image.