Development of bioengineering and optical technologies to elucidate the biophysical interactions of laser light on cells

这是一个生物工程与生物科学的博士研究项目。随着激光在医学上的使用越来越多，特别是在紫外线和深紫外线杀菌应用中，评估遗传毒性和识别新型激光源的危险效应是一项挑战。不同的体外和体内方法评估不同的端点，如染色体数目或结构的变化，点突变或DNA链断裂。在这个博士项目中，我们将使用生物工程和生物物理学工具和技术（微流体，微加工，新型光纤，高级显微镜）来了解不同的激光照射条件如何影响人类和细菌细胞的分子和结构。通过利用这些微工程和光学技术，我们将开发新的设备和程序，使我们能够更好地理解和量化由于激光暴露在分子，亚细胞和细胞水平上的损伤机制。例如，生物afm可以与微流体相结合，以观察细胞膜的机械扰动，活细胞荧光显微镜可以与微流体相结合，以量化DNA损伤对细胞的时间依赖性。了解激光对细菌和人体细胞的影响可以指导这些激光源在临床应用中的使用。

This is a PhD research project in Bioengineering & BioSciences. With the increased use of lasers in medicine, in particular in the UV and deep UV for germicidal applications, comes the challenges to assess genotoxicity and identify hazardous effects of novel laser sources. Different in vitro and in vivo methodologies assess various endpoints such as change of chromosome number or structure, point mutations or DNA strand breaks. In this PhD project, we will employ bioengineering and biophysics tools and techniques (microfluidics, microfabrication, novel optical fibres, advanced microscopy) to understand how different laser exposure conditions affect molecules and structures of human and bacterial cells. By exploiting these micro engineering and optical technologies we will develop new devices and procedures enabling measurements that allow us to better understand and quantify the mechanisms of damage due to laser exposure at molecular, sub cellular and cellular levels. For example, bioAFM may be combined with microfluidics to visualise mechanical perturbations of cell membrane, and live cell fluorescence microscopy may be combined with microfluidics to quantify the time dependence of DNA damage to cells. Understanding the effects of laser light on bacteria and on human cells can guide the use of these laser sources in clinical applications.