Metabolic Imaging & Tissue engineering Group News

PhD student Caroline Kelly and Dr. Claudio Toncelli just published another joint research paper dedicated to development of novel solid-state based polymer O2 sensors. The paper accepted to 'Sensors and Actuators B: chemical' journal describes sensors produced by solvent spotting on hydrophilic polyolefin fabrics. This method is expected to be useful for broad range of industrial and food science applications. The full text of article can be found here .

Project title:  DEVELOPMENT OF BIONIC SENSOR MATERIALS FOR METABOLIC IMAGING IN REGENERATIVE MEDICINE Description: The Science Foundation Ireland funded four-year PhD studentship is available from the 01/09/2014 at the Laboratory of Biophysics and Bioanalysis under "Starting Investigator Research Grant" scheme led by Dr. Ruslan I. Dmitriev. A four-year PhD studentship position is available from 1/09/2014. The research project is on the development of novel luminescent oxygen and pH sensitive probes based on self-assembling viral nanoparticles. The biosensors produced will be characterised by spectroscopic and biochemical methods, and evaluated in 2D and 3D cell and tissue models by live imaging techniques, particularly Phosphorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy (PLIM). The project involves multi-disciplinary approaches, chemical and synthetic biology, spectroscopy, molecular and cell biology, bio-imaging. Applicants are expected to attain first or upp

Prof. D. Papkovsky presented at two international conferences relevant to the fields of poprhyrins and O2 transport into live tissue: At 8th International conference of porphyrins and phtalocyanines (ICPP-8, Istanbul, Turkey, June 22-27, 2014) organised by Society of Porphyrins and Phtalocyanines he presented talk entitled "Oxygen (nano) sensors based on phosphorescent porphyrins". At the annual meeting of International Society on Oxygen Transport to Tissue (ISOTT 2014, London, UK, 28 June- 3 July) he presented a talk entitled "Optical imaging of cell and tissue oxygenation by means of cell-penetrating phosphorescent probes".

A new paper entitled "Imaging oxygen in neural cell and tissue models by means of anionic cell-permeable phosphorescent nanoparticles" just have been published by the team in CMLS journal. This is result of joint efforts of team members with Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience (UCC), Graz University of Technology (Graz, Austria) and RCSI (Dublin). The paper describes development and application of novel multi-modal nanoparticle O2 probes intended for high-resolution imaging in diverse range of neural cell models, including 2D cultures of primary cells, multi-cellular aggregates and live brain slices. As a proof-of-concept, the multiplexed detection of O2 in relation to distribution of neural progenitor cells was performed. We hope that this probe, termed PA2 will become a potent tool for broad area of neuroscientists and scientists working in related areas. Article link .

Tuesday 8 th July 2014 – Minister for Research and Innovation, Mr Seán Sherlock, T.D. has today announced €23 million in new funding to help support 40 of Ireland’s most promising young research talent to become fully independent researchers. The funding which is being awarded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) will help ensure that Ireland’s most talented young researchers can be encouraged to remain in Ireland, while also helping to attract excellent young researchers from other countries to base themselves here.  (From SFI website). Dr. Dmitriev has secured funding for Starting Investigator Research Grant entitled "DEVELOPMENT OF BIONIC SENSOR MATERIALS FOR METABOLIC IMAGING IN REGENERATIVE MEDICINE" (~500K, 2014-2018) which will fund him and one supervised PhD student under mentorship of Prof. D. Papkovsky. The project is aiming at development and investigation of properties of advanced self-assembling biopolymer-based phosphorescent molecules for sensing O2,