PREFERRED. Boyden co-invented optogenetics and expansion microscopy, the latter physically swelling fixed tissue in a hydrogel to achieve nanoscale-resolution imaging on conventional diffraction-limited microscopes; his Synthetic Neurobiology Group continues to push these techniques (expansion revealing, thousandfold expansion microscopy) alongside genetically encoded voltage/activity indicators and brain-wide circuit mapping. The group's Media Lab page notes it is currently accepting new students.
Brasselet is a CNRS researcher at Institut Fresnel developing polarization- and orientation-resolved fluorescence microscopy, using controlled excitation and detection polarization states to map the 3D orientation and organization of fluorescent probes and biomolecular assemblies (e.g. lipid order, amyloid and cytoskeletal structures) at and beyond the single-molecule level, including recent work on the mathematical foundations of polarimetric microscopy.
Breeze is a senior research fellow at UCL working on room-temperature solid-state masers. Research directions: (1) Pentacene maser — first demonstration of a room-temperature, continuous-wave solid-state maser (Science 2018) using photoexcited triplet-state pentacene in p-terphenyl crystal; achieving amplification with noise temperature near 1 K; (2) Diamond NV maser — developing NV-center-based maser for ultra-low-noise microwave amplification at room temperature, relevant to quantum sensing readout chains; (3) Maser applications — quantum-limited amplification for dark matter searches, MRI signal amplification, and quantum communication repeaters; (4) Spin dynamics — understanding triplet-state dynamics in organic crystals for spin polarization control. Strong relevance to quantum-limited microwave sensing.
Cui develops vertical nanopillar electrode and optical sensor arrays that interface with the cell membrane to probe curvature-sensitive signaling, and pairs them with 3D super-resolution (single-molecule localization) microscopy to resolve nanoscale protein organization at the nano-bio interface with 10-20 nm precision, well past the optical diffraction limit.
Defienne leads the Quantum Imaging Paris group at INSP, using spatial correlations and Hong-Ou-Mandel-type interference between entangled photon pairs to build microscopes that see through scattering media and correct optical aberrations without a spatial light modulator. His ERC-funded CORAMI project develops correlation-based adaptive optics as a universal add-on module for existing microscopes, targeting deeper (>1 mm), higher-contrast in-vivo imaging for neuroscientists, dermatologists, and ophthalmologists.
Dickinson's group develops advanced optical microscopy methods for biological and biomedical imaging. Research directions: (1) STORM super-resolution microscopy — stochastic optical reconstruction for nanoscale imaging of biological structures at ~20 nm lateral resolution; imaging cytoskeletal dynamics, cellular organelles, and pathological structures; (2) Optical coherence tomography (OCT) — depth-resolved, label-free imaging for biomedical diagnostics (retinal, cardiovascular tissues); (3) Laser speckle imaging — blood flow and perfusion measurements in tissues; (4) Multiphoton microscopy — second harmonic generation (SHG) and two-photon for collagen structure imaging in connective tissues and cancer. Part of the Manchester Photon Science Institute biophotonics theme.
Dunsby co-invented oblique plane microscopy (a single-objective light-sheet technique) and develops multidimensional fluorescence lifetime and light-sheet imaging instrumentation for live-cell and tissue imaging, applied to cancer diagnostics and cell biology.
Gambin was the first EMBL Australia group leader appointed to Single Molecule Science. His signature method combines cell-free protein expression with two-colour single-molecule coincidence and fluctuation spectroscopy, which sidesteps purification entirely: proteins are expressed, labelled and measured in lysate, an order of magnitude faster than conventional interaction assays. The biology is protein self-association and aggregation — alpha-synuclein in Parkinson's, cardiac and muscular disease proteins — where the size distribution of oligomers, not the mean, is the quantity of interest. 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 conceptual overlap with quantum biosensing is the insistence on distributions over averages, and his aggregation systems (paramagnetic-species-generating, redox-active amyloid) are a plausible target for T1-relaxometry-based NV detection at pT/sqrt(Hz) in the near term.
Gardner's group develops infrared and Raman microspectroscopy for biomedical diagnostics and disease sensing. Research directions: (1) FTIR synchrotron microspectroscopy — using Diamond Light Source synchrotron IR beam for high-spatial-resolution chemical mapping of biological tissues for cancer diagnosis; (2) Raman microspectroscopy — label-free chemical imaging of cells and tissue for disease classification using machine-learning chemometrics; (3) SERS probes — developing gold nanoparticle SERS labels for targeted cancer biomarker detection; (4) Breathomics — on-chip photonic sensors for exhaled breath analysis for early disease detection. The infrared and Raman methods provide label-free molecular sensing with potential for quantum-enhanced sensitivity.
Garner uses high-resolution, single-molecule tracking and localization microscopy (PALM-based) to study the dynamic spatial organization of the bacterial cytoskeleton and cell-wall synthesis machinery in live prokaryotic cells at nanometer precision.