Ananthanarayanan was awarded the Royal Microscopical Society Life Sciences Award in 2025 for the use of novel microscopies in cell biology. Her group images individual motor proteins — dynein, kinesin — and the mitochondria they transport, in living cells, at single-molecule sensitivity, combining light-sheet and TIRF-class imaging with particle tracking to ask how organelle positioning and mitochondrial dynamics are controlled. The methodological emphasis is on getting single-molecule sensitivity inside a live cell rather than in vitro, which is the hard version of the problem. 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 — this is the closest thing at UNSW to a biological end-user for an in-cell quantum sensor: the mitochondrial systems she studies are precisely where NV nanodiamond thermometry and free-radical relaxometry at pT/sqrt(Hz) have been aimed, and she has the live-cell imaging infrastructure to validate any such measurement independently.

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.

Fletcher combines optical and force microscopy (AFM, optical tweezers) with purified-protein and single-cell assays to measure the mechanics of cell movement and immune-cell activation, and has also developed low-cost imaging instrumentation (foldscopes, phone-based microscopes) for global health.

Monzel holds the biophysics/biophotonics professorship at Stuttgart's 2nd Institute of Physics. The group develops multiparametric imaging spectroscopy and high-resolution light microscopy -- combining super-resolution, fluorescence-fluctuation and lifetime-resolved methods -- to read out several observables at once in living cells and in biomimetic model membranes, and pairs this with magnetic nanoparticles used to apply and sense forces on cell-surface receptors (magnetogenetic control of signalling). Single-molecule analysis inside cells is an explicit focus. Relative to the established NV-ensemble quantum-sensing playbook (DEER, nanoscale NMR, T1 relaxometry at pT/sqrt(Hz) ensemble sensitivity), this is the closest thing at Stuttgart to a natural biological host for in-cell quantum sensing: the group already does single-molecule-resolution live-cell imaging and already works with magnetic nanoparticles, so nanodiamond relaxometry/thermometry would slot in with the readout stack it already runs. Relatively new appointment -- good moment to join.