Schnitzer's lab invents miniaturized and fiber-based two-photon microscopes and voltage/calcium imaging methods that allow single-cell-resolution recording of neural activity in freely behaving animals, including recent wide-field fluorescence-lifetime voltage imaging developed with the Kasevich group for high-throughput readout of neuronal spiking.
Schueder is a newly appointed (2025) EPFL Assistant Professor specializing in high-resolution microscopy and its biological applications. He played a key role in the development of DNA-PAINT, a super-resolution microscopy technique enabling nanometer-scale (~5 nm) visualization of cellular structures via transient programmable DNA hybridization. Research directions: (1) DNA-PAINT super-resolution — multiplexed, quantitative imaging of protein complexes in fixed and living cells with Exchange-PAINT; (2) Single-molecule localization below 5 nm resolution — resolving individual proteins within complexes; (3) Biological applications — imaging cytoskeletal networks, receptor clustering, chromatin organization; (4) Expanding to in situ structural biology — correlating super-resolution images with cryo-EM data. Transferred from ETH Zurich. Strong fit with EPFL imaging and structural biology ecosystem.
Schultz uses two-photon calcium imaging and other optical neurotechnology to study neural population activity in vivo, with application to understanding circuit dysfunction in neurodegenerative disease and to brain-machine interfaces.
Develops single-molecule genomics technologies using nanofluidics and optical mapping to analyze whole genomes and structural variation.
Develops and applies single-molecule fluorescence super-resolution imaging (including FIONA, nanometer-accuracy localization) to study the structure and dynamics of molecular motors (myosins, kinesins, dyneins) and other biological macromolecules.
Sentenac develops computational super-resolution fluorescence microscopy at Institut Fresnel, notably Random Illumination Microscopy (RIM), which reconstructs sub-diffraction images from the statistics (variance) of many speckle-illuminated acquisitions without requiring photoswitchable probes, along with the underlying inverse-problem theory that establishes its resolution limits and robustness for live and thick-sample imaging.
Shaevitz combines custom super-resolution and multifocal/3D imaging instrumentation with single-molecule tracking to make precision measurements of bacterial cell-shape mechanics, cytoskeletal dynamics (e.g. MreB), collective motility and pattern formation, and animal behavior quantification. His lab pioneered 3D live-cell imaging of bacterial shape during growth and continues to develop chromatic multifocal and localization-microscopy instrumentation in collaboration with the Yang and Gregor labs.
Sierecki co-developed the cell-free single-molecule interaction platform with Gambin and runs a group applying it to protein interaction networks: mapping which proteins bind which, with what affinity and in what stoichiometry, at throughput high enough to screen rather than characterise one pair at a time. Recent applications include viral protein-host interactions and transcription factor complexes. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — the relevance to a quantum-sensing candidate is as a source of well-characterised, quantitatively-defined biological targets: a pT/sqrt(Hz)-class sensor is only useful in biology if someone can tell you exactly what molecular species is present and at what concentration, which is what this platform delivers. Borderline inclusion — no quantum or physics-instrumentation component — kept because single-molecule technique development is the core of the group.
Develops compact, bright semiconductor quantum dot probes for single-molecule and single-particle live-cell imaging, and photonic-crystal-enhanced single-quantum-dot digital biosensing (with B. Cunningham).
Smith runs Melbourne's time-resolved fluorescence facility and specialises in the information channels most people throw away: fluorescence lifetime, anisotropy decay and its orientational content, and single-molecule photophysics, applied to organic semiconductors, energy-transfer systems and biological samples. The group builds its own confocal microspectroscopy instrumentation for time-resolved anisotropy imaging and single-molecule detection. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — lifetime- and orientation-resolved fluorescence is the principal orthogonal contrast mechanism to spin-based sensing, and his instrumentation is the natural correlative partner for NV-ensemble DEER/relaxometry experiments at pT/sqrt(Hz) that need an independent optical readout of the same specimen. Preferred attribute present: orientation- and lifetime-resolved methods.