James Abney was born in Jacksonville, Florida on March 28, 1959. He earned B.S. degrees, cum laude, in physics and biology from the University of California at Irvine in 1981, and a Ph.D. in biophysics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1987.
After receiving his Ph.D., James worked at some of the nation’s most prominent research institutions, including the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) medical schools. While at LBL, James was supported by an Alexander Hollaender Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship. James’s research has focused on molecular organization and dynamics in biological systems and has led to almost twenty publications in top journals, including Nature, Journal of Cell Biology, Chemical Physics Letters, and Biophysical Journal.
James moved to Portland in 1993, and earned a J.D., summa cum laude, from Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College in 1997. During law school, he was an Associate Editor of Environmental Law. James worked as a law clerk during the summer of 1996 and joined Kolisch Hartwell as an attorney in 1997.
James has continued his research program even as an attorney. Two of his recent projects include studying chromatin dynamics in interphase nuclei of Swiss 3T3 and HeLa cells using fluorescence photobleaching techniques, and studying secretory granule dynamics in PC12 cells using optical microscopy and a tissue plasminogen activator/green fluorescent protein hybrid. He currently is collaborating with his wife, Bethe Scalettar, on studies of intracellular trafficking and secretion in hippocampal neurons.
James is a member of the California and Oregon State Bars, as well as the Biophysical Society, Phi Beta Kappa, and Sigma Pi Sigma, the national physics honor society. He is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. His other interests include hiking, running, and swimming.
Selected Publications
Research Articles
- How a gap junction maintains its structure. J. Braun, J.R. Abney & J.C. Owicki (1984) Nature. 310:316–318.
- Lateral interactions among membrane proteins: valid estimates based on freeze-fracture electron microscopy. J. Braun, J.R. Abney & J.C. Owicki (1987) Biophys. J. 52:427–439.
- Lateral interactions among membrane proteins: implications for the organization of gap junctions. J.R. Abney, J. Braun & J.C. Owicki (1987) Biophys. J. 52:441–454.
- Theoretical comparison of the self diffusion and mutual diffusion of interacting membrane proteins. B.A. Scalettar, J.R. Abney & J.C. Owicki (1988) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 85:6726–6730.
- Self diffusion of interacting membrane proteins. J.R. Abney, B.A. Scalettar & J.C. Owicki (1989) Biophys. J. 55:817-833.
- Mutual diffusion of interacting membrane proteins. J.R. Abney, B.A. Scalettar & J.C. Owicki (1989) Biophys. J. 56:315–326.
- An ‘exact’ integral equation approach to the inverse problem in two-dimensional fluids. J.R. Abney & J.C. Owicki (1989) Chem. Phys. Lett. 164:73–76.
- On the measurement of particle number and mobility in nonideal solutions by fluorescence correlation spectroscopy. J.R. Abney, B.A. Scalettar & C.R. Hackenbrock (1990) Biophys. J. 58:261–265.
- Dynamics, structure, and function are coupled in the mitochondrial matrix. B.A. Scalettar, J.R. Abney & C.R. Hackenbrock (1991) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 88:8057–8061.
- Evanescent interference patterns for fluorescence microscopy. J.R. Abney, B.A. Scalettar & N.L. Thompson (1992) Biophys. J. 61:542–552.
- Determinants of the translational mobility of a small solute in cell cytoplasm. H.P. Kao, J.R. Abney & A.S. Verkman (1993) J. Cell Biol. 120:175–184.
- Calculation of resonance energy transfer in crowded biological membranes. D.B. Zimet, B.J.-M. Thevenin, A.S. Verkman, S.B. Shohet & J.R. Abney (1995) Biophys. J. 68:1592–1603.
- Fluctuations and membrane heterogeneity. J.R. Abney & B.A. Scalettar (1995) Biophys. Chem. 57:27–36. (Special issue on “Molecular Crowding”)
- Chromatin dynamics in interphase nuclei and its implications for nuclear structure. J.R. Abney, B. Cutler, M.L. Fillbach, D. Axelrod & B.A. Scalettar (1997) J. Cell Biol. 137:1459–1468.
- Real-time imaging of the dynamics of secretory granules in growth cones. J.R. Abney, C.D. Meliza, B. Cutler, M. Kingma, J.E. Lochner & B.A. Scalettar (1999) Biophys. J. 77:2887–2895.
Teaching Articles
- Saving your student’s skin: undergraduate experiments that probe UV protection by sunscreens and sunglasses. J.R. Abney & B.A. Scalettar (1998) J. Chem. Ed. 75:757–760.
Invited Review Articles
- Theories of protein-lipid and protein-protein interactions in membranes. J.R. Abney & J.C. Owicki (1985) in Progress in Protein-Lipid Interactions, eds. A. Watts and J.J.H.H.M. de Pont (Elsevier, Amsterdam), Vol. 1, pp. 1–60. (ISBN 0-444-80630-X)
- Molecular crowding and protein diffusion in biological membranes. B.A. Scalettar & J.R. Abney (1991) Comments Mol. Cell. Biophys. 7:79–107.
- Molecular crowding and protein organization in biological membranes. J.R. Abney & B.A. Scalettar (1993) in Thermodynamics of Membrane Receptors and Channels, ed. M.B. Jackson (CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida), pp. 183–226. (ISBN 0-8493-6908-8)