About his PhD project

Biological cells constantly process various input signals in order to live and act, one important trigger being interaction with the environment via adhesion. Adhesion is determined by the strong coupling of cell biochemical reactions to the spatial constraints imposed by its membrane and cytoskeleton, as well as the force sensitivity of all the players. To develop an interpretative and operative understanding of cell adhesion, an important step is to map the gap between the interacting cells with sufficient resolution. Reflection interference contrast microscopy (RICM) has been highly successful in filling this gap in soft matter systems. Recently, we extended the use of quantitative RICM to cells, completing a 40 year old challenge. Here we propose to develop RICM further to make it faster as well as more accessible to non-specialist users, including through an artificial intelligence (AI) based approach.