The Project
Wave-fronted engineered microscopy for the investigation of signal transmission in neurons and glial cells.
Winner
Valentina Emiliani-Sirtori
CNRS FRE 2500
Laboratory of Neurophysiology and New Microscopy
Paris, France
www.biomedicale.univ-paris5.fr/neurophysiologie/
Italian Valentina Emiliani-Sirtori, 38 years old, graduated from the University of Rome in 1991 with a Diploma in Physics. She obtained her Master’s degree in 1991 and Ph.D in Physics in 1996. She spent three years as a post doc at the Max Born Institut in Berlin. From 2000 to 2002 she was researcher at the European Laboratory for Nonlinear Spectroscopy in Italy. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the Institut Jacques Monod in Paris in 2004. Currently she is CNRS Researcher.
Award
€901,795
Project Description
The objective of this research project is the development of optical techniques based on wave front engineering microscopy (WFEM).
Traditional optical systems use lenses or curved mirrors to introduce changes in wave-front curvatures, eg, to focus, collimate or expand laser beams. In contrast, by means of WFEM, light from a laser beam can be spatially redistributed with an ad hoc shape by introducing dynamically and locally a controlled modulation of its phase and amplitude. In this project, this will be obtained by generating three-dimensional holograms with liquid crystal arrays that will transfer the desired phase/amplitude relation into optical wave- fronts.
In a first instance, the project will focus on the realization of the wave front engineering microscope and its applications for novel illumination and detection schemes for biology, such as engineered uncaging beams, multi-beam combination, multi-spot generation, and aberration control for ultra-deep two-photon imaging.
In a second part, the research activity will be dedicated to utilizing these schemes for the study of the spatial-temporal pattern of signal transmission in neuron and glial cells.
To guarantee success, it is believed that development must be carried out by a team of physicists inserted into a dynamic environment of biological laboratories. The creation of an optical laboratory in a biomedical institute will permit fast integration of concepts of modern optics in biological imaging and facilitate their application to topical neurobiological questions. To this end, the project will be carried out in the CNRS unity directed by Serge Charpak at the UFR Biomedicale of Paris5.
