LIGHT UP THE BODY

Creating technologies to view chemical processes in the brain and body in real time

Check out our Facility Voucher Program (FVP)

Introducing our new program to encourage multi-disciplinary research by supporting labs that want to explore new imaging modalities. Up to $1,000 per award!

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CILS Core Featured Image

Shipworm Tissue in the Digestive Glands

Distribution of GH6 domain of a cellulase produced by intracellular bacterial symbiont

Instrument: Zeiss LSM 880

Credit: Marvin Altamia/Distel Lab

We develop nanosensors and use multiple imaging modalities to highlight dynamic processes in the body in real time.

Professor uses gene regulation to improve drug delivery and treatment of rare genetic diseases

CILS Member Ke Zhang is researching a new drug delivery method using oligonucleotides to treat Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), with potential applications in other genetic diseases, offering hope for more efficient treatments.

Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Our researchers collaborate across five following core disciplines to develop breakthrough imaging tools:

Probe Development
Probe Delivery
Imaging Technologies
Animal Models
Signal Processing

THE NEED

The development of novel imaging tools for real-time detection of molecular neural events, such as neurotransmitter release, is fundamental for studying the basis of brain function and disease, which leads to the development of better diagnostics and therapeutics.

Chemical analysis could be used to study processes like neurotransmitter release, but the field currently has a scale problem. New technologies are needed that can balance the specificity of cellular imaging with the functional, structural, or spatial capabilities of whole-body imaging.

CILS Members

Manuscripts enabled by CILS core facilities

OUR SOLUTION

Our goal is to create a new suite of modular nanoscale tools, probes that image dynamic biological processes beyond what is currently feasible. By forming multidisciplinary teams, we select and focus on a difficult problem that needs a solution – the interface between instrumentation and the biological environment is key to our success. Starting from a research question, we work through the probe’s lifecycle, from novel platform development, continuing through to its biological application.

THE BENEFITS

vaccines by Megan Chown from the Noun Project

Enabling a doctor to measure specific biomolecules in a patient over disease progression will lead to better-informed diagnostics and personalized care.

Microscope Analysis by Ahmad Roaayala from NounProject.com

Animal models better reflect a specific neurological disease state, and the same tools used to study these models can be used to further human research.

personalized experience by Nithinan Tatah from the Noun Project

Diseases can be studied in a highly personalized fashion, for the design and development of precision interventions.

OUR APPROACH

We have demonstrated new nanoscale probes to detect in vivo analytes such as glucose (with applications for diabetes), electrolytes (relevant for dehydration for endurance sports and military applications), therapeutic drug monitoring, neurotransmitters (useful for neurodegenerative disease) and cytokines (to detect immune response in COVID-19).