【報告題目】Optoelectronics for neuroscience

【報告人】 Carmen Bartic博士

【邀請人】葉堅博士

【時間】3月30日（周三）16：00-17：00

【地點】Med-X 108 （閔行文選樓323會議室同步視頻）

【摘要】The KU Leuven nanobiophysics team lead by Prof. Carmen Bartic investigates the properties of nanomaterials and their interactions with biomolecules and cells by a variety of optical, electronic and scanning probe techniques. Our main goal is to develop tools and methods allowing stimulating and probing cellular activity with high spatial and temporal resolution. Of particular interest are neuroscience applications. Specifically, we study the aggregation of amyloid peptides and proteins and their interaction with neurons and also with inorganic nanoparticles (i.e. biomineralization), as inorganic nanoparticles may evolve as a new class of cellular sensors with improved performance due to their unique opto-electronic properties arising from their nanometer dimensionality  (Chem. Mat.2014, J.Biol.Chem.2014, EMBO J.2010). Therefore we investigate the effects of biomolecular interactions on the optical properties of QDs for sensing applications (Nanotech.2015, RSC Adv.2014). Targeting in vivo applications, we recently developed a closed-loop platform allowing activity-based neuronal activation for optogenetic studies and in this context studied the interaction of visible light with brain tissue (J.Biophot.2015, J.Neural.Eng.2014). During this lecture an overview of our research projects related to probing the neuronal function by optoelectronic methods will be given.

【報告人簡介】Carmen Bartic obtained the PhD in Physics from the KU Leuven, Belgium, in collaboration with imec in June 2002 based on her work on organic-based field-effect transducers for bioanalytical applications. Between 2002 and 2009 she was leading the Neuroelectronics research team of imec. In 2007 she was appointed as 10% associate professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the KU Leuven, Belgium. From October 2009, she is a full time faculty in the Soft Matter and Biophysics Unit of the same department at KU Leuven and is heading the LRD Nanobiophysics division (http://fys.kuleuven.be/zmb/nanobio/ )

The Nanobiophysics team investigates the properties of nanomaterials (i.e. metal and semiconductor nanostructures) and their interactions with biomolecules and cells in the context of biosensing applications. Specifically we study how biofunctionalization and cellular signaling influence the optoelectronic properties of inorganic nanostructures by a variety of optical, electronic and scanning probe techniques (Nanotechnology 2015, Chem. Mat. 2014, etc.). In this context, we investigate the interaction of visible light with living tissues (J. Biophotonics 2016) and develop optical and electronic methods allowing stimulating and detecting cell activity in vitro and in vivo (J. Neural Eng. 2014, IEEE J. Solid-State Circ. 2014, Lab-on-Chip 2012, ACS Nano 2012 etc.). As senior scientist, group leader and later associate professor, C. Bartic has participated or coordinated several national and international funded projects (e.g. IWT SBO Artificial Synapse 2006-2010, EC – FP6 FET BrainStorm 2008-2010 and FP7 FET ENLIGHTENMENT 2012-2015). She teaches topics on modern physics, biophysics and biomaterial properties to physics, biophysics, biochemistry and nanotechnology students at the University of Leuven. C. Bartic has published more than 100 peer-reviewed research articles and has 6 granted patents and 5 patent applications pending.