Biological tissues and fluids become far more transparent to light in the near infrared spectral window, at wavelengths too long for our eyes to detect. This increased transparency is highly promising to enable deep tissue imaging at high spatial and time resolutions. However, we currently lack light-emitting contrast agents that are small, bright, biocompatible, and chemically versatile to enable this kind of biomedical imaging technology. I will discuss how we are merging DNA nanotechnology together with fluorescent silver nanoclusters to solve this challenge. By combining high-throughput experimentation and machine learning with atomic-scale investigations of DNA-templated silver nanoclusters, we have designed a new class of near-infrared emitters within the tissue transparency window. These new materials hold promise for enabling a wide range of biomedical imaging and sensing modalities.

Featured Speaker:

Stacy Copp

Dr. Stacy Copp

Assistant Professor, University of California, Irvine

Copp earned her bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics from the University of Arizona in 2011. She then completed her master’s degree (2013) and doctorate (2016) in physics at UC Santa Barbara. Copp studies how biomolecular and polymeric building blocks can be used to build novel nanomaterials that generate and/or control light, with an aim to revolutionize technologies in medicine and energy. At UCI, her lab focuses on DNA-directed assembly of metallic clusters and nanostructures and block copolymer-directed assembly of photonic nanomaterials, as well as methods to expedite nanomaterials discovery using high-throughput experiments and tools from machine learning. Copp was a Hoffman Distinguished postdoctoral fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she also held a UC President’s postdoctoral fellowship, a L’Oreal USA for Women in Science fellowship, and a LANL Director’s postdoctoral fellowship.

Event Date
October 16, 2024 / 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Format

  • In-person
  • Virtual

Timing

  • Past

Event Type

  • Distinctive Voices

Location

  • Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center
  • Irvine
  • CA

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