Our PhD student Alice Attenborough took centre stage at the Physics of Life Meeting in Harrogate, presenting her pioneering work on bioluminescence.
Brilliant science on a big stage! 🔬💪

Singaporean Heart Fingers Crossed from All! 🤞💖

Kalani Perera has successfully defended her PhD thesis! The external examiner, Professor Ling from NTU Singapore, was highly impressed with Kalani's work on using smart nanoparticles and WGM to study catalysis down to the single-atom level. Congratulations!

The 4th edition of our Single-Molecule Sensors and NanoSystems Conference was another great success! It was fantastic to see the growing interest in our research and so many exciting new results!

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Katya successfully defended her PhD thesis on the topic of Computational Modelling of Nanoscale Interactions, which led to extensive theoretical discussions with the two examiners! Well done!

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Congratulations to Matt, Nikita, and Deshui for their article in Advanced Science, demonstrating how Optoplasmonic WGM sensors can measure the work and force exerted by enzymes, paving the way for future control of enzyme synthesis!

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Matt, Nikita, and Deshui show that absorption of light by a single molecule can be detected on our WGM sensor paving the way for single-molecule absorption spectrometers. Congratulations on this landmark paper!

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Vollmer-lab team of PhD students and postdocs published a cornerstone perspective article in ACS Photonics which was selected for cover! Congratulations to all co-authors!

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Frank visited the National Institute of Material Science (NIMS), Tsukuba, Japan. We will have lots to collaborate on!

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Vollmerlab’s Matt and Alice presented their work at the 3rd edition of our Single-Molecule Sensors and nanoSystems conference in Barcelona. We are looking forward to the 4th Edition, which will take place in Nov 2024 in Paris.

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Callum successfully defended his PhD thesis on the topic of quantum optics for nanophotonic biosensing! Many congratulations!

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Vollmerlab received a BBSRC Pioneer Award titled Optical single-molecule dynamometer that measures work and force of active enzymes.

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Frank Vollmer recently received a prestigious award from the Institute of Physics for his distinguished contributions to biosensing with optical microcavities. The single-molecule technique enables groundbreaking advances in how we use light to study biomolecules and their biochemical reactions. 

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Katya and her team from the A*STAR scholars network received a merit prize and an award for the best presentation for their competitive performance in the annual APAC HPC-AI Competition, organized by the HPC-AI advisory council and sponsored by NSCC and NCI Australia.

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Samir won the award for best poster at the CES 2022 conference. CES (Cavity Enhanced Spectroscopy) is a biennial international meeting that brings together the community of physicists, chemists, atmospheric scientists, and engineers who work in the broad area of cavity enhanced spectroscopy and its many applications. Congratulations, Samir!

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A recently published review paper, with Nikita as first author, was formally recognized as one of the top downloaded papers of Light: Science & Applications. 

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Our Woma co defence had a record turnout of 263 online attendees around the world. Next Woma 2024 will be held in New Zealand. See you there!

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This month we had a highly successful Physics of Life workshop, which brought together early career researchers to discuss everything molecular mechanics!

Image credit: Mathis Riehle. 

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Jolly is making a quantum jump after more than 5 years in the Vollmerlab! Congratulations Prof Xavier for the career progression to the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

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PhD alumna from the Vollmerlab will become a Max Planck Research Group Leader at the MPI in Frankfurt.

Congratulations Eugene Kim!

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New cornerstone review article published in Nature. Click here to read the full paper.

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We officially opened our new G22 lab in physics… including ribbon, new ideas and exceptional researchers!

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Congratulations to Serge, who just passed the viva and became the first graduated PhD in the Vollmerlab Exeter!

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Serge's paper on reversible disulphide interactions was recently published in Nature communications. What  a great achievement! Click here to read the full paper. 

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Katya has recently moved to Singapore as part of a collaboration with the A*STAR Institute of High Performance Computing. Click below to find out more about her postgraduate life in Singapore!

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Katya was presented with an award for the best contributed talk at the IONS 2019 conference. Well done, Katya!

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Our postdoc Aneeth Kakkanattu shared his exciting breakthrough in sensing neurotransmitter-membrane interactions- via poster presentation!
Just goes to show: not all big discoveries need a big stage. 💥

The examiners were impressed with Shahin's innovative research on the spectroscopy of chiral molecules on plasmonic nanoparticles and their assemblies, exploring chiral shells and single monolayers. Congratulations, Shahin!

Congratulations Aneeth, on a successful viva and the start of the next chapter as a freshly minted PhD!

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A cornerstone perspective article on WGM sensing by Vollmer Lab members, with insights from quantum optics, artificial intelligence, and nanoscale catalysis.

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"Physics of Life" is now the largest theme at the Living Systems Institute. Our group members that drive research in this field are highlighted below in the group photo from the LSI Away Day.

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We are looking forward to the 4th instalment of our conference, which will take place 28 - 30th October 2024 in Paris - Join us!

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Vollmer-lab postdoc Keisuke (right) is now a group leader at NIMS-MANA, considered by many the birthplace of Nanoscience; Congratulations!

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Frank and Sam presented at the University Bristol workshop on ultra weak photon emission. Shown below is the ultra-strong photon emission of the Clifton Suspension Bridge near the venue. 

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Leibniz IPHT in Jena held a vibrant career workshop and conference for female researchers in the field of optics and photonics. Katya presented her work there on the topic of computational methods for biosensor signal analysis. 

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Frank presented the Quantum Life Science Moonshot. What are the major global challenges that will drive the future of research and innovation for the next few decades? Where is the UK best placed to lead groundbreaking innovation that will have truly significant impact? UKRI is looking to identify bold, ambitious, and transformative ideas for moonshots across the research and innovation landscape.

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Katya recently presented her work on decoding biosensor signals using supercomputers at the ISC 2023 conference in Hamburg. She discussed parallelization strategies in computational chemistry code and how these simulations can be helpful in the life sciences.

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A paper written by members of the Vollmerlab, titled Review of biosensing with whispering-gallery mode lasers, made it onto the 2022 list of outstanding papers in the Nature Light: Science and Applications journal.

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Matt received an award at the SWBio Annual Student Conference for his research poster on probing conformational thermodynamics of enzyme turnover by optoplasmonics. Congratulations, Matt!

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Deshui will lead his own research group at the NTSC – National Time Service Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences! Congratulations to our theory grandmaster on this wonderful position!

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Kalani received an award for the best research poster at the WOMA 2022 conference! Congratulations, Kalani!

An outstanding review paper with Deshui from the Vollmerlab as leading author was published on 09 Dec 2021. Read the paper here. 

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Siva’s work is featured on the front cover of ACS journal!

Read the full article here. 

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Vollmerlab PhD student, Callum Jones, recently won the 2nd prize for his presentation at the university postgraduate research conference. Congratulations, Callum!

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After a 3 hour examination online via Zoom, Siva successfully defended his thesis. Well done Siva!

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Monika is the winner of the 2020 LSI Christmassy desk competition with her inventive optics lab themed xmas tree.

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New book written by Frank Vollmer and Deshui Yu, explaining the fundamentals of optical whispering gallery modes. It is suitable for an interdisciplinary readership comprised of physicists, bioengineers and medical professionals. 

Click here to purchase a copy!​​

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Our research group has been granted access to JADE (a Tier 2 supercomputer) for the new BooLeaN project, which aims to understand the Biophysics of Life at the Nanoscale using AI computer vision techniques. 

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Katya will be joining the Alan Turing Institute virtually from January 2021, following a successful research proposal for the Alan Turing Enrichment Scheme.

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NTU and Exeter are working in partnership to deliver six split-site Biomedical PhD studentships. Aneeth has started his studentship in Exeter now and will move to Singapore soon.

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