PIs

Associate Professor, EMBL Australia Group Leader, University of New South Wales 🔗
Status: unreviewed revisit date: None Application status: none LOR status: not_needed
Department(s)/lab(s): EMBL Australia Node in Single Molecule Science, UNSW Medicine and Health | Gambin Single Molecule Biophysics Group @ UNSW
Summary:

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.

Created at: July 12, 2026, 1:04 a.m. Updated at: July 12, 2026, 1:04 a.m. Metadata: Fresh 2026-07-11. Primary lab: single molecule biophysics, EMBL Australia Node in Single Molecule Science; runs jointly with Sierecki.