Professor Shimon Weiss, UCLA

“Inorganic Voltage Nanosensors”

About the Seminar

We have been developing targetable voltage sensing inorganic nanoparticles (vsNPs) that are designed to self-insert into the cell membrane and optically record, non-invasively, action potential on the single-particle level, at multi-sites and in a large field-of-view. Using the first generation of vsNPs, we measured large quantum confined Stark effect (QCSE) shifts as function of voltage (in-vitro, using electrodes) . We are currently working on functionalization and membrane insertion schemes for these probes. Once fully developed, we hope that these vsNPs could be generally useful for the study of action potential signals in the central and peripheral nervous systems and in muscle tissues.

About the Speaker

Shimon Weiss is professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Department of Physiology at UCLA. His lab has been working on ultrasensitive single molecule spectroscopy methods and applications. They were the first to introduce the single molecule FRET method and together with the Alivisatos group they were the first to introduce quantum dots to biological imaging. Shimon received his PhD from the Technion in Electrical Engineering in 1989. His postdoctoral training was in AT&T Bell Laboratories. He was a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory between 1991-2001. In 2001 he joined UCLA.