Exploring light and life: nanophotonics and AI for scalable molecular sensing, sequencing, and synthesis

We present nanophotonic methods that may enable unprecedented data about biochemical systems, at rates previously unattainable. We use our lab’s Si-photonic “Very-large-scale Integrated high-Q Nanophotonic Pixels” (VINPix), that achieve high-Q factors, subwavelength mode volumes, and controlled dipole-like radiation, simultaneously. We apply these chips to analyse the tumor-immune microenvironment, achieve glyco sequencing, and enable site-specific DNA synthesis. We also present our work uniting nanophotonics and mechanobiology to develop a new class of in vivo force probes, “microgauges”, to quantify in-vivo forces in living animals.