The Ultrafast Bio- and Nanophotonics group is devoted to the study of light-matter interactions and its use to develop technologies that impact the societal challenges wellbeing, safe & secure society as well as an urban society.

We are using optical labels to track smart drug delivery systems, and other innovative nanomaterials in interaction with cells and biological tissues using advanced fluorescence and nonlinear spectroscopy e.g. to measure intracellular temperature.

We use and develop new imaging techniques such as super-resolution microscopy techniques and light sources, such as quantum and plasmonic LEDs.

Our femtosecond laser sources can be used for laser-based micro-nanofabrication, e.g. of photonics crystals or 3D scaffolds for tissue engineering using two photon polymerisation.

Nonlinear multi-photon FLIM imaging modes are developed for deep tissue and cell metabolic studies.

Join the Ultrafast Bio- and Nanophotonics group!

We invite motivated students from the Bioengineering, Physics, Chemistry and related areas to contact us for possibilities to conduct research internships or #master projects in our group!

Highly motivated PhD candidates and postdocs with nanophotonics research experience, please contact jana.nieder@inl.int for further information on funding opportunities (e.g. #FCT grants, #Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship grants and others) to join the team.

NEWS

2020-05-26: Our 3D microfabrication paper is online! We multiply fabrication speed using multiple beamlets to fabricate periodic structures simultaneously. Further, we perform first interdisciplinary studies with live cells. Here the link to the article: Multi-beam two-photon polymerization for fast large area 3D periodic structure fabrication for bioapplications,  Maibohm et al., Scientific Reports 10, 8740 (2020)

2020-05-20 This year we organised the International Day of Light event as an online webinar with inspirational talks related to Light and Biology, Energy, Computing and Health, and all information you need to work with us, e.g. as collaborator. Recored version available online.

2020/03 Project granted: FCT-UT Austin portugal Programme: ExtreMED – Collaboration between the  UBNP group at INL with U Porto (FemtoLab- Prof. H. Crespo) and Sphere Ultrafast Photonics as well as with UT Austin.

In the National News: With our near field DNA – hybridisation methods based on a Graphene sheet (collaboration with INL research group 2D Materials and Devices led by Prof. P. Alpuim).

Highlight in Publico on our scientific work published in ” 2D Materials”, IOP Journal

Interview on TV channel “Porto Canal” (In Portuguese – sorry for any language errors;)

SCIENTIFIC Publication in the Portuguese National TV:

SyncRGB-FLIM in PT national TV!

Original SyncRGB-FLIM Publication can be found here!

SCIENTIFIC Publication with Backcover at  Nanoscale:

Original Nanodrug delivery publication can be found here!

Student prize:

Rodrigo Ferreira receives “Best Oral Communication” prize at the IJUP 2019 – 12^th Meeting of Young Researchers of University of Porto for his oral presentation entitled “Few-cycle laser for real-time nanomedicine research: towards innovative anti-cancer therapy” awarded by the University of Porto.

Rodrigo performed his Master research project partly at the Femtolab at University of Porto and partly at the Ultrafast Bio- and Nanophotonics group at the INL – International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory in a collaboration project also with the support from Sphere Ultrafast Photonics.

Congratulations Rodrigo!

Recent Publications

[1]      O.A. Savchuk, O.F. Silvestre, R.M.R. Adão, J.B. Nieder, GFP fluorescence peak fraction analysis based nanothermometer for the assessment of exothermal mitochondria activity in live cells, Sci. Rep., 9 (2019) 7535.

[2]      S.A. Thompson, I.A. Martínez, P. Haro-González, A.P. Adam, D. Jaque, J.B. Nieder, R. De La Rica, Plug and Play Anisotropy-Based Nanothermometers, ACS Photonics, (2018).

[3]      C. Maibohm, F. Silva, E. Figueiras, P.T. Guerreiro, M. Brito, R. Romero, H. Crespo, J.B. Nieder, SyncRGB-FLIM: synchronous fluorescence imaging of red, green and blue dyes enabled by ultra-broadband few-cycle laser excitation and fluorescence lifetime detection, Biomed. Opt. Express, 10 (2019) 1891–1904.

[4]      R.C.F.G. Lopes, O.F. Silvestre, A.R. Faria, M.L.C. do Vale, E.F. Marques, J.B. Nieder, Surface charge tunable catanionic vesicles based on serine-derived surfactants as efficient nanocarriers for the delivery of the anticancer drug doxorubicin, Nanoscale, (2019).

[5]      A.R. Faria, O.F. Silvestre, C. Maibohm, R.M.R. Adão, B.F.B. Silva, J.B. Nieder, Cubosome nanoparticles for enhanced delivery of mitochondria anticancer drug elesclomol and therapeutic monitoring via sub-cellular NAD(P)H multi-photon fluorescence lifetime imaging, Nano Res., (2018).

RESEARCH