Imperial Biophotonics lab

We develop and use advanced imaging techniques to learn more about biological processes.

The techniques we use and develop are all based on fluorescence imaging - using fluorescent dyes or tags to label the parts of cell we're interested in and then exposing them to light, which causes them to emit light in turn and be detected. We use fluorescence microscopy to visualise the location of labelled molecules and also fluorescence spectroscopy, where the same principle is used the measure or identify the substance in a sample.

These technologies allow us to study biological processes in great detail, and can be adapted to be automated, to detect how the amount of a substance changes over time or to produce 3D images.

Our lab at the Crick interacts closely with the institute's Electron Microscopy, High Throughput Screening and Light Microscopy STPs, and works most closely with Erik Sahai's lab on applications to cancer, including as part of our MACH3CANCER Cancer Research UK accelerator programme.

We also work with a range of Crick group leaders on biophysics, cell signalling in cancer and COVID-19, 3D imaging of developmental biology, and powerful, 'super-resolved' microscopy which allows us to see objects that are closer together than the wavelength of light.

We are working to make our technology widely available as open source, cost-effective and locally sustainable instruments.