NOBIC would like to invite you to an in-person talk on:
Friday, November 3rd, 2023, 10.00
at
TR+5 (SBS-01n-25), NTU
60 Nanyang Drive
Singapore 637551
Advanced microscopy at UiT the Arctic University of Norway’s Ultrasound, Microwaves, and Optics Group
Deanna L. Wolfson
Department of Physics and Technology, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø
Abstract
The Ultrasound, Microwaves, and Optics (UMO) group is organized within the Department of Physics and Technology (IFT) at UiT. Its 30+ members come from broad range of disciplines including physics, chemistry, biology, electrical engineering, computer science, and more. A core competency of the group is the design and fabrication of optical waveguides, and it stretches into related experimental activities, data analysis, machine learning, biotechnology, simulations, and more. In addition to optical waveguides, the design, fabrication, and prototyping umbrella covers ultrasound transducers, microfluidic devices, 3D cell culture supports, and nanotechnology. The experimental activities cover a variety of optical instrumentation, with an emphasis on advanced specialty microscopes. Some of these modalities include extended field of view and super-resolution TIRF, photoacoustic, optical tweezers, light-sheet, and quantitative phase imaging.
Our application areas demonstrate our broad range of individual expertise and strong collaborations; these include, amongst others, mammalian, marine, and micro-biology at multiple size scales: from interactions of fish cells with nano- and microplastics to extracellular vesicles to nanopores in liver cells or to engineered heart tissue. In addition to designing new devices, we are also developing new computational methods to improve either the resolution of our images or extract additional information from them, ideally without requiring as many perturbations to the sample as with conventional techniques (e.g. reducing the need for fluorescent dyes or high intensities). We have expertise for these projects both within our group and through close ties with other departments at UiT (e.g. fisheries, pharmacy, medical biology, informatics…), and have multiple large-scale international projects, including an INTPART mobility project tying us closely with collaborators at EMBL, the Indian Institute of Technology, and MIT, as well as multiple EU-funded projects with partners in Germany, Italy, and beyond. A key factor for our success has been an emphasis on interdisciplinary communication and experience exchange, with our researchers regularly working closely together with our collaborators. This presentation will highlight some of our technology and biological areas of expertise, with the aim of inspiring others who are interested in future collaborations.
