BENEFICIARY 08
 
Biophotonics & Medical Photonics Research Group in the University of St. Andrews
 
 
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ORGANIZATION
 
A major component of the photonics research interests in the School of Physics & Astronomy in the University of St Andrews relates to photomedicine and photobiology. There are more than 10 tenured researchers and over 30 research fellows/students actively engaged in activities in this sector. These topics are also taught at undergraduate and the graduate, Master of Science, levels in our university.
  
 
One of the key research strengths within the School is the level of intellectual mixing that is achieved through inter-group and intra-group mixing and synergy. The University of St Andrews is currently embarking on the building of a major new Medical Sciences Institute (70M euros investment). This will be physically contiguous with the School of Physics & Astronomy so that research across the disciplines can be further enhanced. This initiative will give significant infrastructural underpinning of the ARAKNES project objectives.
 
 
MAIN TASKS WITHIN THE PROJECT
USA is primarily involved in WP5 with the development of photonic technologies for endoluminal diagnosis and therapy.
 
 
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE
An infrastructure exists where cross-fertilisation of ideas in encouraged by deliberately supporting research endeavours at the boundaries between disciplines. A number of staff from Photonics and Condensed Matter groups have complemented their pre-existing activity by establishing initiatives in molecular, biological and medical physics, with new collaborations with the UK’s Medical Research Council for the study of radiation transfer in biological tissue. One of the most important biomedical initiatives where USA is involved is IMSaT (Section 2.3).
 
 
CONTACT

Prof Wilson Sibbett
School of Physics & Astronomy
University of St Andrews
North Haugh
St Andrews KY16 9SS
Scotland, UK
 
 
 
PEOPLE
 
 
 
Prof. Wilson Sibbett started his research studies in the development of picosecond electron-optical streak cameras and thier evaluation using a range of mode-locked, flashlamp-pumped lasers.  This work led to the first demonstration of a linear diagnostic technique that offered direct sub-picosecond time resolution. This was followed some time later by his pioneering work on coupled-cavity (also called additive-pulse) mode locking and, in 1989, by his group's discovery of the technique of Kerr-lens (or self) mode locking that heralded a new era of practical and efficient femtosecond lasers. Although, first observed as an exploitation of the optical Kerr effect in titanium-doped sapphire, the general applicability of the "KLM" technique has opened up many new avenues of ultrafast laser science and related applications as well as enabling the commercialization of user-compatible femtosecond lasers that cover a wide range of frequency tunability . His research can be said to have made pioneering and revolutionary impacts in this area of photonics.
 
 
 
Dr. Tom Brown is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of St Andrews.  He received his first degree in Physics from Imperial College, London before moving to the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University to complete his PhD (1997) on the development of miniature laser systems.  His work now specialises in the development and use of new laser systems for innovative applications in telecoms, biophotonics and medical sciences.
 
 
 
Professor Kishan Dholakia, FRSE, OSA Fellow, SPIE Fellow is a Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy. He has worked here for a number of years as a postdoctoral research fellow, a Royal Society of Edinburgh Research Fellow, and now as a permanent member of staff. His research interests cover a wide range of interests from the development of new applications in biophotonics to undertaking fundamental research on the propagation of light beams.  He also leads a major research team devoted to the practical application of Raman spectroscopy for the diagnosis of early stage cancer.
 
 
 
Professor Thomas F. Krauss obtained a PhD in the area of semiconductor ring lasers at the University of Glasgow (1992). He then initiated the field of semiconductor photonic crystals in the UK and gained SERC (1993) and Royal Society (1995) Research Fellowships in support of this work. He has since established a reputation worldwide, as evidenced by the large number of invited talks he presents at international level (10-12 such presentations per year) He is grant holder of several EPSRC, EU and industrially sponsored research projects, coordinated EU-FP5 "PICCO" and leads the current EU-FP6 "SPLASH", both studying fundamental and applied aspects of photonic crystals.
His research interest is the study of optical nanostructures and how they can be used to control the emission and propagation of light. This includes studying microemitters for optical interconnects in "SpeckNets", slowing down light to enhance nonlinear effects, using diffractive optics for enhanced emission from LEDs, optically trapping of bioparticles in photonic nanoresonators and the development of novel biosensors. His 15-strong group operate the nanofabrication facility at St. Andrews, including electron beam and photolithography, wet and dry etching, thin film deposition as well as a characterisation suite for active and passive microphotonic devices. Prof Krauss was elected a Fellow of the IoP (2001) and the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2002).
 
 
 
Dr. Mario E. Giardini graduated and received his PhD in Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Pavia, Italy. He has been Research Scientist in the National Institute for Physics of Matter (INFM, Italy), where he has developed instruments, devices and technologies for the most diverse applications, mainly dedicated to the biomedical and biotechnological world. His research has implied a framework of constant contact with Industry, where he has also moved for three years to head the R&D activities of a leading microscope manufacturer. He has now joined the University of St Andrews, to work on optical and photonic instrumentation and technologies.
 
 
 
Dr. Gajendra P Singh received his PhD (Biophotonics) in July 2006 at the ICFO-Institut de Ciències Fotòniques & Department of Electronics Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain. He worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA on the applications of Raman spectroscopy for non-invasive detection of blood analytes, diagnosis of breast cancer and vulnerable atherosclerotic plaques. He has recently joined the University of St Andrews to develop Raman spectroscopy probes and integrate them with other promising photonic technologies for biomedical applications.
 
 
 
 
Beneficiary 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11