Allain (PPSM) designs luminescent and mechanofluorochromic molecular materials and lanthanide/organic probes acting as optical stress and environment sensors, including solid-state and time-resolved luminescence readouts. In the broader landscape of NV-centre ensemble quantum sensing (DEER, nano-NMR, T1 relaxometry) operating near pT/sqrt(Hz) sensitivity, this work is complemented by stimuli-responsive molecular luminescent sensors.
Allemand co-pioneered single-molecule magnetic-tweezer manipulation of DNA and RNA, using calibrated magnetic forces/torques to measure the torsional and stretching mechanics of nucleic acids and the real-time kinetics of the motor proteins (helicases, polymerases, topoisomerases) that act on them. His joint lab with Vincent Croquette continues to develop new magnetic-tweezer instrumentation (including high-throughput and torque-sensing variants) applied to DNA replication, repair, and RNA processing machinery.
Ananthanarayanan was awarded the Royal Microscopical Society Life Sciences Award in 2025 for the use of novel microscopies in cell biology. Her group images individual motor proteins — dynein, kinesin — and the mitochondria they transport, in living cells, at single-molecule sensitivity, combining light-sheet and TIRF-class imaging with particle tracking to ask how organelle positioning and mitochondrial dynamics are controlled. The methodological emphasis is on getting single-molecule sensitivity inside a live cell rather than in vitro, which is the hard version of the problem. Positioned against the established body of NV-ensemble quantum sensing work — DEER, nanoscale NMR and T1 relaxometry protocols operating at pT/sqrt(Hz) field sensitivity — this is the closest thing at UNSW to a biological end-user for an in-cell quantum sensor: the mitochondrial systems she studies are precisely where NV nanodiamond thermometry and free-radical relaxometry at pT/sqrt(Hz) have been aimed, and she has the live-cell imaging infrastructure to validate any such measurement independently.
PREFERRED. Anikeeva's Bioelectronics Group engineers minimally invasive, multifunctional fiber-based neural probes (combining optical, electrical, and microfluidic channels) and magnetic nanoparticle transducers that enable wireless, gene- and wire-free magnetothermal, magnetomechanical, and chemomagnetic neuromodulation, with applications spanning deep-brain stimulation and gut-brain circuit interrogation.
Marie-Eve Aubin-Tam (Associate Professor, BioNanoscience) uses single-molecule tools to study membrane proteins and cell biophysics. Research: (1) optical tweezers protein unfolding — mechanical unfolding of membrane proteins to probe folding landscape; (2) single-molecule cell biophysics — force spectroscopy on live cells; (3) synthetic biology applications — integrating engineered proteins with biophysical tools.
Combines optical microscopy, quantum sensing, and magnetic resonance to develop single-molecule and super-resolution microscopy methods, including orientation-resolved imaging and metrology, spanning biophysics and condensed matter applications.
Backman develops nanoscale-sensitive optical biophotonics -- including chromatin-sensitive partial-wave spectroscopic (PWS) microscopy, which is label-free and detects mass-density fluctuations of chromatin packing domains below the diffraction limit -- and combines it with super-resolution imaging, electron tomography, and computational genome modeling in his nano-ChIA platform. The lab links this multi-scale nanoscale chromatin imaging to gene-expression physics and has translated the technology into cancer early-detection diagnostics through several spinout companies.
Bain develops advanced laser spectroscopy and super-resolution microscopy techniques for biological applications. Research directions: (1) Femtosecond time-resolved STED (stimulated emission depletion) — combining sub-diffraction spatial resolution with picosecond time resolution to study FRET dynamics in live cells with both spatial and lifetime precision; (2) Time-resolved polarized fluorescence — probing orientation distributions and rotational dynamics of fluorophores; (3) CW STED fluorescence lifetime reconstruction — lower-photodose STED for longer live-cell imaging; (4) Single-molecule FRET to study protein-protein interactions; (5) Single-particle tracking of membrane receptors relevant to viral entry and cancer signaling. Former PhD students include Siân Culley (now King's College, SMLM).
Barbosa de Aguiar develops label-free, chemically-selective coherent Raman (CARS/SRS) and computational microscopy — including compressive-sensing-accelerated Raman microspectroscopy and wavefront-shaping through strongly scattering biological tissue — to push spatial and spectral resolution of label-free biomedical imaging, working within Sylvain Gigan's Complex Media Optics team (Photonics, Information & Complexity axis).
Develops BioMEMS and nanopore-based biosensors, lab-on-chip devices, and micro/nano-fabricated platforms for pathogen and biomolecule detection and multiscale tissue engineering.