Who are we
We are optical cell biologists. We address biomedical questions by building enabling technology in optical microscopy and artificial intelligence, and we release it as open technology that extends what cellular imaging can reach. All our research and methods are transparent, reproducible and available to any researcher. In biology we work on virology, microbiology, host-pathogen interactions, immunology and cell signalling, through new classes of fluorescent probes, high-speed cell-friendly super-resolution methods and computational modelling. These are built to answer questions in the lab, and they carry over to many other fields.
The laboratory is directed by Ricardo Henriques. In 2024, we started moving the laboratory to Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier in Universidade Nova de Lisboa, where we will be based. In tandem, we will maintain for a short period a laboratory at the Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine. In 2020, we moved the laboratory to Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência from the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology in University College London, where the group was founded in 2013. Between 2017 and 2020, we had an additional small laboratory at The Francis Crick Institute.
Over the years, our group's name has evolved to reflect our changing research themes:
- 2024-...: AI-driven Optical Biology at ITQB
- 2020-2024: Optical Cell Biology at IGC
- 2017-2020: Computational and Optical Biophysics at UCL and The Crick Institute
- 2013-2017: Quantitative Imaging and Nanobiophysics at UCL
The constant in our lab has always been our interest in extending optics and computational analysis far enough to make biological observations that were impossible before.
About the lab logo: our beautiful logo was kindly designed by Siân Culley, circa 2016, while member of our team. Siân now runs her own lab, you can read more about their research here.