Director, Microscopy and Imaging Core Facility
Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Education:
Ph.D., Developmental Cell Biology, University of Manitoba
B.Sc.(hons.) Genetics, University of Manitoba

Career Highlights:
Chris Bjornsson earned his Ph.D. in developmental cell biology from the University of Manitoba, utilizing electrophysiology and immunofluorescence techniques to explore the role of proton and calcium fluxes in establishing developmental polarity during insect oogenesis.

Following his graduate studies, Bjornsson took postdoctoral position at the Wadsworth Center in Albany, NY. This research focused on characterizing and minimizing the brain’s reactive responses to neuroprosthetic devices, specifically the role of vascular damage in determining the extent of injury. He has taught histology and microtechnique at the Department of Zoology at U of M and at Albany Medical College in Albany, NY.

Research Areas:
Bjornsson has considerable experience with fluorescence, confocal, and electron microscopy. He has developed multilabel immunohistochemistry strategies in combination with spectral imaging to maximize the amount of information that can be derived from single tissue sections. This approach has been indispensable for working with scant human tissue resected from patients with deep-brain stimulators, and for describing the morphology and interrelationships of multiple cell types within the in vivo stem cell niche.

He has also worked closely with Dr. Badri Roysam’s group at RPI to help develop automated image analysis software capable of analyzing complex multilabel 3-D images.

Selected Publications:
Bjornsson CS, Oh SJ, Al-Kofahi YA, Lim YJ, Smith KL, Turner JN, De S, Roysam B, Shain W, Kim SJ. Effects of insertion conditions on tissue strain and vascular damage during neuroprosthetic device insertion. Journal of Neural Engineering 3(3): 196-207, 2006.

Lin G, Bjornsson CS, Smith KL, Abdul-Karim MA, Turner JN, Shain W, Roysam B. Automated image analysis methods for 3-D quantification of the neurovascular unit from multichannel confocal microscope images. Cytometry A 66(1): 9-23, 2005.

Retterer S, Smith KL, Bjornsson CS, Neeves K, Spence A, Turner JN, Shain W, Isaacson M. Model neural prostheses with integrated microchannels: Treating the reactive responses to implantable devices. IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng. 51(11): 2063-73, 2004.

Bjornsson CS, Huebner E. Extracellular hydrogen dynamics during oogenesis in Rhodnius prolixus ovarioles. J. Exp. Biol. 207(16): 2835-2844, 2004.

Szczurek EI, Bjornsson CS, Taylor CG. Dietary zinc deficiency and repletion modulate metallothionein immunolocalization and concentration in small intestine and liver of rats. J. Nutr. 131(8): 2132-2138, 2001.

Contact Information:
Chris Bjornsson
(518) 276-3456
bjornc@rpi.edu