From the 13th to the 15th of January the ESRs and the MUSIQ partners came together once again to discuss their progress on the development of next-generation optical microscopy.
The conference was hosted virtually from GSK in Stevenage – hence we dubbed it COVID can’t stop the MUSIQ – and brought together scientists from 9 countries spanning across 9 time zones. All ESRs had a chance to share and discuss their science with some of the greatest scientific minds in non-linear optics, plasmonics, spectroscopy or mass spectrometry from the safety of their homes.
The main focus of this conference were the ESRs and their talks on their scientific progress they achieved prior to this meeting, covering the fields of ultrafast spectroscopy and optical microscopy exploiting quantum coherent nonlinear phenomena. The management and organisation of the event was in the hands of Jan Majer and Nicole Slesiona, puppeteered by Steve Hood (GSK) and Paola Borri (Cardiff University). ESRs were responsible for the chairing and the management of the individual sessions to prepare each and every one for their future in the scientific community.
Apart from peer-to-peer scientific discussions among the students and discussions with the PIs, professors Ian Gilmore, Michel Orrit, Enrico Gratton and Christoph Lienau, members of our advisory board, accepted the invitation to deliver talks as Keynote speakers. They shared their expertise and their innovative approaches to further everyone’s insights into the possibilities that lay in front to bring the scientific community closer to broaden everyone’s knowledge about ultrafast quantum processes:
- Metabolic imaging with subcellular resolution using mass spectrometry, held by Prof. Ian Gilmore
- Optical Microspectroscopy of Single Molecules and Nanoparticles, held by Prof. Michel Orrit
- Single cell physiological characterization in living tissue, held by Prof. Enrico Gratton
- Coherent ultrafast charge and energy transfer processes in nanostructures, held by Prof. Christoph Lienau