The Centre of Biophotonics (CoB) at the University of St Andrews was established in 2019 with the mission of promoting interdisciplinary research and training at the interface between advanced optical imaging, photonics and biomedical sciences. The Centre integrates researchers across four schools (Physics and Astronomy, Medicine, Biology and Psychology and Neuroscience) and builds on existing strengths in the development and application of light based technologies to investigate biological process at molecular, cellular and tissue scales. The CoB brings together more than 20 research groups around three main themes: imaging across temporal and spatial scales, mechanobiology and neurophotonics. Thus, CoB addresses important questions to improve human health including the origins of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, neurological disorders and the advance in the fight against bacterial and viral pathogens. The CoB is also strongly committed to translational research and the dissemination of technologies emerging from the Centre in collaboration with other institutions and industrial partners.

Seeing is believing and light-based imaging technologies are, now more than ever, uniquely positioned to unveil the mechanisms of life as well as disease. Building on more than 20 years of light-based innovation for the biosciences and by collaborating across disciplines and recruiting the best talents, we aim to watch these processes unfolding in real time, from the molecular and cellular scales, to the whole-organism level.


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Next BioLIGHT CoB Seminar:

Activatable fluorescent probes for imaging cellular function in real time

Speaker: Prof Marc Vendrell

Chair of Translational Chemistry and Biomedical Imaging

Centre for Inflammation Research and IRR Chemistry Hub, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.

Host: Prof Carlos Penedo

6th November 2024, 1 pm, BMS Seminar Room

Fluorescent activatable probes are valuable tools for live-cell imaging because of their tunability and target specificity.1 Our group has designed fluorogenic amino acids and peptides for high-resolution biological imaging and translational medicine. Our team have demonstrated that this approach can generate probes to visualize infectious pathogens (e.g., fungal pathogens in ex vivo human lung tissue2) and subsets of immune cells in live cells and in vivo3 and in ex vivo human biopsies.4 We have designed our fluorescent amino acids to: 1) be compatible with conventional solid-phase peptide synthesis, 2) maintain the biomolecular recognition features of the native peptides and 3) emit fluorescence preferentially after target binding, improving signal-to-noise ratios for imaging. Furthermore, we have reported fluorogenic analogues with emission >600 nm to prepare of cyclic peptides for imaging tumor cells using multiphoton imaging in vivo.5 Recently, we have extended the toolbox with smaller amino acids, which include the first phenylalanine-based fluorogenic building blocks for detection of urinary tract Candida infections,6 the smallest turn-on fluorescent amino acids for peptide-PAINT imaging and super-resolution microscopy,7 and to fluorogenic tags for small proteins associated with immune cell function like interleukins and cyclophillins.8,9

[1] Nat. Rev. Chem. 2020, 4, 275; [2] Nat. Commun. 2016, 7, 10940; [3] Nat. Commun. 2020, 11, 4027; [4] Nat. Commun. 2022, 13, 2366; [5] a) Chem. Sci. 2020, 11, 1368; b) Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2022, 61, e20211302; [6] Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2022, 61, e202117218; [7] Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2023, 62, e202216231; [8] ACS Cent. Sci. 2024, 10, 143; [8] ACS Cent. Sci. 2024, 10, 969.

His full profile can be found here:

https://www.dynafluors.co.uk/