Study & working visits

Together with other members of the group Jan Guzowski visited Prof. Roland Zengerle Lab at University of Freiburg, Germany. The agenda of the meeting included presentation by Prof. Zengerle as well as by other two group leaders in his lab, namely Dr. Peter Koltay and Dr. Felix von Stetten.

Yuriy Stepanenko visited the University of Nevada, Reno. The purpose of this study visit was to continue the collaboration began in 2007 with the group of Laser-plasma interaction at Nevada Terawatt Facility, University of Nevada, Reno. The group uses advanced laser sources for plasma generation, particle acceleration and diagnostics of Z-pinch.

This visit was scheduled in cooperation with one of the best group in the field of ultrafast Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) – prof. Huber group from Lubeck. The purpose  of the visit was to obtain results from ultrafast (up to 100 vol./s) OCT on rabbit and mice hearts. In order to do that, we have made a cooperation with Max Planck

The goal of the visit was to carry first in the world investigation of full heart with use of OCT system. For that Michał Hamkało had to get newly extracted hearts of mice from an authorized laboratory in Goettingen and took it to Luebeck (to next cooperator) with help of dr Jan Christoph.

The main goal of the reported trip was a study visit to the Optical Biomedical Engineering Laboratory at the University of Western Australia. Karol Karnowski met there with prof. Barry Cense (local group supervisor) and attended OBEL group meetings.

The goal of the visit was to perform experiments on human cells using novel microscopic technique:  differential dynamic microscopy (DDM). The plan of the experiments contained quantification of movement of subcellular components in native HeLa cells and observation of changes of mobility during programmed cell death (apoptosis).

The purpose of the travel was to assess the perspectives for future collaboration with the Soft Living Matter Group run by prof. Clifford Brangwynne at the Princeton University. The group conducts cutting-edge research in the field of physicochemistry of soft matter in living systems.

The working visit's main purpose was to measure the pupillary light reflex in response to strong infrared light. Several new developments have taken place. A new method for processing the pupil images was implemented.

Professor Maciej Wojtkowski (the ERA Chair holder, the Head of the Department of Physical Chemistry of Biological Systems) accompanied by the:

• Director of the Institute of Physical Chemistry PAS - professor Marcin Opallo,
• President of the Scientific Council of IPC - professor Aleksander Jablonski
• Project Coordinator - professor Robert Holyst, and
• former postdoc at Professor Holyst Group – Associate Professor Hou Sen, linking person with Nankai University,

visited Nankai University in Tianjin, China (the 6 – 8^th March, 2017).

Two-photon excitation fluorescence (TPEF) imaging of the back of the eye allows visualization of subcellular structures in the living animal eye. This method is helpful for investigating mechanisms of retinal diseases and development of ophthalmic therapies.