AFM & SPM Meeting 2024

Georg Fantner

EPFL Switzerland

Georg E. Fantner received his MS degree from the University of Technology Graz in 2003, and his PhD degree from UC Santa Barbara in 2006 (advisor: Paul K. Hansma). During his masters and PhD, he developed a number of high performance AFM instruments and applied them to the study of the molecular origin of bone fracture toughness. After a Postdoc in the biomolecular materials lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Advisor: Angela M. Belcher), he joined the École Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne as assistant professor in 2010. Now, as associate professor, he leads the laboratory for bio- and nano-instrumentation in the institute for bioengineering. His research, which has been funded by the European Research Council with an ERC starting grant and an ERC consolidator grant, focusses on the development of new technologies to measure and manipulate nanoscale structures in general, and the development of atomic force microscopy instrumentation in particular. He applies these instruments to answer questions in a variety of fields ranging from materials science and nanotechnology to biology and life science. His interdisciplinary work has been published in many high impact journals such as Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Cell biology, Nature Microbiology, Nature Communications, Nano Letters, and Science, as well as featured in a number of popular science- and general-interest magazines. He serves as scanning probe microscopy editor for Microscopy and Microanalysis (CambridgeCore), and as editorial board member for Scientific Reports. His recent work focusses on the development of time resolved scanning probe microscopy imaging, encompassing new modes for high-speed AFM imaging of molecular processes, as well as long-term time lapse imaging of cellular processes using AFM and scanning ion conductance microscopy. Prof. Fantner hold several patents in the field of nanotechnology and is the co-founder of two nanotechnology companies. Recently he has become active in the field of open hardware, where he explores new avenues to foster free academic exchange of knowledge, particularly for the development of highly sophisticated custom instruments. He serves as the president of the EPFL open science strategic committee and the ETH-domain open research data steering committee.

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Adam Foster

University of Aalto, Finland & Kanazawa University, Japan

Adam S. Foster is a professor at the Department of applied physics at Aalto University and research professor at Kanazawa University, Japan. He established the Surfaces and Interfaces at the Nanoscale (SIN - www.aalto.fi/physics-sin) group at Aalto, where he applies and develops various atomistic and quantum mechanical simulation methods to study surface and interface physics at the nanoscale, with particular emphasis on working closely with experimentalists and technologists. His research topics include nanoscale studies of nanomanipulation, nanocatalysis, microelectronics, molecular electronics, and are often partnered with state-of-art Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM). Recently the group has been very active in the development of machine learning methods for SPM analysis and control.

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Ricardo Garcia

Instituto de Ciencia de Materials de Madrid (CSIC), Spain

Ricardo Garcia is a Professor of nanoscience and nanotechnology at the Instituto de Ciencia de Materials de Madrid (CSIC).  His scientific activity is focused on the development of  force microscopy methods for studying  soft materials and solid-liquid interfaces. In the late 90s, he contributed to the development of  tapping mode AFM.  More recently, his research is focused on three problems:  development of multifrequency methods, in particular, bimodal AFM for high-resolution mapping of soft matter;  designing 3D-AFMs for imaging at atomic scale solid-liquid interfaces and advancing nanomechanical property  mapping of living cells. Some of his inventions are commercialized. RG is a top 0.1 % scientist according to the most comprehensive, rigorous and recent study on scientific impact (J.P.A. Ioannidis, 2022). RG has received several prizes, the most recent is the ‘Best Scientific Career Prize (2022)’ given by the Regional Government of Madrid.

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Georg Gramse

Johannes Kepler University/Keysight Technologies

Dr. Georg Gramse is group leader of the Nanoelectronics group at Johannes Kepler University and  Scientific Researcher at Keysight Technologes in Linz. He studied Physics at Freie University Berlin and Nanotechnology at University of Barcelona. He received his PhD in Nanoscience at the University of Barcelona and IBEC and has a strong expertise in electrical metrology at the nanoscale based on scanning probe microscopy and other characterization techniques. He developed new electrical measurement techniques/ methods and applied them to solve open research questions in various fields like Biophysics, Electrochemistry, Material Science and Semiconductor-Physics. The special technological emphasis on broad frequency and high speed electrical measurements at the nanoscale is combined with the development of accurate and numerical quantification procedures based on finite element modelling.

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Helen Hansma

University of California, Santa Barbara

Helen Greenwood Hansma is an American biologist, biophysicist, biochemist, and academic. She is a Researcher Emeritus and Associate Adjunct Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Hansma's research revolves around understanding the origin of life and proposes that life originated between mica sheets in micaceous clay. She has contributed to the fields of biophysics and biochemistry through her work on biomolecular materials, DNA-protein interactions, and the applications of Atomic Force Microscopy to biological materials.

Further information about Helen can be found on her Wikipedia page.

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George Heath

University of Leeds, UK

Dr. George Heath is a University Academic Fellow at the University of Leeds in the School of Physics and Astronomy and School of Biomedical Sciences. His PhD work with Prof Stephen Evans and Dr Simon Connell investigated a range of lipid membrane and protein systems using atomic force microscopy (AFM) including actin assembly at membranes, protein diffusion and lipid phase behaviour. He remained in Leeds to perform postdoctoral research, moving across to the School of Biomedical Sciences to work with Prof Lars Jeuken designing bottom up approaches to mimic multi-layered membrane protein systems to understand the biological processes and exploit their properties for biotechnology applications. He then completed a second postdoctoral position in New York working with Prof Simon Scheuring at Weill Cornell Medicine of Cornell University. Here he developed and applied new high-speed AFM methods to study membrane proteins before returning to Leeds in 2019 to start an independent position as University Academic Fellow. His current research focuses on further developing high-speed AFM techniques to study the structural dynamics of complex single biomolecules on the sub nanometre scale to increase our understanding of diseases and improve medicine.

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Andrew Iskauskas

University of Durham, UK

Assistant Professor in Statistics, with a research focus on Bayesian emulation of complex computer models (particularly epidemic and environmental models), and uncertainty quantification for physical sciences.

Sohini Kar-Narayan

University of Cambridge, UK

Talk title: Nanoscale Electromechanical Characterisation of Functional Polymers

Sohini Kar-Narayan is a Professor of Device & Energy Materials in the Department of Materials Science at the University of Cambridge, where she leads an interdisciplinary research group working on functional nanomaterials and devices for energy, sensing and biomedical applications. She received her PhD in Physics from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 2009. Following a postdoctoral appointment at the Department of Materials Science in Cambridge, she was awarded a prestigious Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship in 2012, and a European Research Council Starting Grant in 2015. She was the recipient of a World Economic Forum Young Scientist Award in 2015, and in 2021 she was named as one of the top 50 Women in Engineering by the Women’s Engineering Society. Prof Kar-Narayan’s research focuses on functional nanomaterials for applications in energy, sensing and bio-medicine. She is a Co-Founder and Director of ArtioSense Ltd., a spin-out from the University of Cambridge that seeks to commercialise a microfluidic force sensing technology for applications in orthopaedic surgery that was awarded the Armourers & Braisiers’ Venture Prize Award in 2022. She is a Fellow of Clare Hall College, Cambridge University.

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Sergey Karabasov

Queen Mary University of London

No bio provided

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Ioanna Mela

University of Cambridge, UK

Dr Ioanna Mela studied Chemical Engineering with a specialisation in Biotechnology at the National Technical University of Athens, Greece. During that time, she undertook a student placement at Unilever Corporate Research at Colworth, where she learned how to use Atomic Force Microscopy. This led to a PhD in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Cambridge, with Professor Robert Henderson, where she was introduced to DNA nanotechnology. She worked on this area during a Research Associate appointment at the Department of Pharmacology, combining it with high-speed Atomic Force Microscopy. In 2018 she moved to the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge as a Research Associate where she developed state-of-the-art correlative atomic force microscopy with super-resolution microscopy platforms, with a focus on visualising biological specimens. In parallel, she explored further her interest in DNA nanotechnology and specifically in DNA nanostructures that can specifically target bacteria. In 2022 she was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship, to set up her own laboratory in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge and pursue her interests in DNA nanotechnology for drug delivery. The same year, she was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge.

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Laia Pasquina-Lemonche

University of Sheffield, UK

Laia Pasquina Lemonche is an Early-Career-Award Wellcome Trust Fellow leading her own group a University of Sheffield in the School of Biosciences. She graduated from Physics followed by a Master in Nanobiotechnology and Nanoscience at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) in 2016. Then, obtained her PhD in Biophysics at the University of Sheffield in 2020 focusing on deciphering the molecular architecture of gram-positive bacterial cell wall using AFM (L.Pasquina-Lemonche, J.Burns, et al, 2020, Nature). Since then she was a Research Associate in Professor Jamie Hobbs’ group pushing the limits of resolution of biological material with AFM with the aim to study the dynamic peptidoglycan architecture of the cell wall from living and growing cells. Currently, her group focuses on using correlative AFM and STORM to study Streptococcus pneumoniae peptidoglycan and developing novel software approaches to obtain relevant quantitative results from microscopy images.

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Amir Payam

Ulster University

No bio provided

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Kristina Rusimova

University of Bath, UK

Dr. Kristina Rusimova received an MSci in Physics with Nanotechnology from the University of Birmingham (UK) in 2012, followed by a PhD in atomic manipulation with the scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) from the University of Bath (UK) in 2016. Following a short postdoctoral position in photonics, she joined the Department of Physics at the University of Bath as an independent Prize Fellow in 2018 and as a tenured Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in 2021. In 2022 she was part of the team awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Faraday Division Horizon Prize for the discovery of chiroptical harmonic scattering. Her work is now focused on looking for new understanding of the nanoscale physical processes that underpin light emission and single molecule reactions induced by the tip of an STM.

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Adam Sweetman

University of Leeds, UK

Adam Sweetman is a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Leeds, UK. He obtained his PhD from the University of Nottingham in 2010, and subsequently held postdoctoral research positions at the same institute. In 2012 he held a JSPS Short term fellowship at NIMS in Tsukuba, Japan, and from 2014-2017 was awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at the University of Nottingham. Since 2018 he has held his current position at the University of Leeds, where his research interests are focused on understanding the nature of interatomic and intermolecular forces via ultra-high-resolution scanning probe microscopy techniques.

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Takayuki Uchihashi

Nagoya University, Japan

Takayuki Uchihashi is a professor of Physics Department at Nagoya University and an adjunct professor of Exploratory Research Center on Life and Living Systems, National Institute of Natural Science, Japan. In 1998, he obtained Dc. Eng. in Electronics from Osaka University. From 1998 to 2000, he worked at Joint Research Center for Atom Technology (JRCAT) in Tsukuba as a research associate.  After that he moved to Trinity College in Dublin in 2002 and worked as a senior researcher in SFI Nanoscience Institute. In 2004, he joined the Physics Department, Kanazawa University as an assistance professor. He became an associate professor in 2008, and a full professor in Physics Department in 2015. In 2017, he moved to Department of Physics, Nagoya University.  His research interests include the instrumentation of scanning probe microscopy and its application to proteins and polymers.

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Patrick Unwin

University of Warwick, UK

Patrick Unwin is Professor and Head of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Warwick, where he founded the Electrochemistry and Interfaces Group, the EPSRC Warwick Centre for Analytical Science and the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Molecular Analytical Science.  

After graduating from Liverpool (BSc, 1985), he obtained a DPhil at the University of Oxford (1989). He then won independent research fellowships, first as Junior Research Fellow in Physical Sciences at Balliol College, Oxford, and then as SERC/NATO Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, USA.

Pat joined the University of Warwick in the early 1990s and has worked on many topics concerning electrochemistry and interfacial science, including problems of commercial and societal significance. More than 75 PhD students have graduated under his supervision, along with 35 postdoctoral fellows. Many former members of his group have independent academic positions and set up their own groups in institutions around the world and others have leadership positions in industry internationally. Pat and his group are particularly well known for inventing nanoscale electrochemical imaging techniques that provide new models for processes at electrodes (batteries, electrocatalysts, etc.) and other interfaces (biological cells, crystals). These inventions have been commercialised and adopted by academics globally.

Pat is the author of more than 450 papers and book chapters and has won a number of awards, including the Marlow Medal, Corday-Morgan Medal, Barker Medal and Tilden Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), and the Vetter Prize and Experimental Electrochemistry Prize from the International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE).

In 2018, he was the Society of Electroanalytical Chemistry Reilley Awardee, and was selected for the 2019 American Chemical Society, Analytical Division Award in Electrochemistry - in both cases the first from the UK. He was an ERC Advanced Investigator and Royal Society - Wolfson Research Merit Award holder. He is a Fellow of the RSC and ISE. Pat is a member of the editorial committees of a number of international journals and has led the development and organisation of dozens of workshops and conferences.

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Tomaso Zambelli

ETH Zürich

Prof. Tomaso Zambelli is an expert of scanning probe microscopy.
He studied physics (condensed matter) at the Università di Padova (IT) and earned his PhD at the Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (Berlin, DE) under the supervision of Prof. Wintterlin and Prof. Ertl studying catalytic reactions on metal surfaces with UHV-STM. After two years as postdoctoral fellow at the CNRS-LPLE institute in Paris (FR) with Dr. Allongue investigating local metal electrodeposition on Si surfaces with electrochemical STM, he was appointed as “Chargé de Recherches du CNRS” at the CEMES institute (Toulouse, FR) in the Nanoscience Group, where he carried out single-molecule studies by UHV-STM and AFM together with Dr. Gauthier. In 2006, he joined the Laboratory of Biosensors and Bioelectronics (ETH Zürich D-ITET, head: Prof. Vörös) where he initiated and coordinated the invention of the FluidFM technology. His major research interest is the further development of the FluidFM for single-cell biophysics, molecular 2D patterning, and electrochemical additive micromanufacturing.

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