Adventures in (bio)nanoscience, or, how I became a “Scientific Terrorist”

Orateur : Raphaël LEVY (Institute of Intergrative Biology, University of Liverpool)

I started working on gold nanoparticles and their potential in biological sensing and imaging when I joined the University of Liverpool as a post-doctoral researcher in 2002. Proposed applications require adequate functionalisation that provide colloidal stability and control over their molecular interactions with a complex environment. My first few years in this field were largely devoted to the development of peptide self-assembled monolayers. This avenue of research continues in my group to this day as it opens the possibility of engineering complex surfaces incorporating secondary structure elements. My interests then expanded to applications of nanoparticles for live cell imaging and more recently to cell tracking (preclinical imaging, e.g. tracking the fate of stem cells in mice to evaluate their safety). In this presentation, I will aim to give insights on each of these three areas of science, from the design of functional materials to their applications in cells and in animal models, but also, to reflect on our practice of science, ultimately asking to what extent our understanding of the field is distorted by hype, and poor or fraudulent scientific practices.

Télécharger dans mon agenda