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SUMMARY:Annual Symposium - Speaker to be confirmed
DTSTART:20230305T100000Z
DTEND:20230305T180000Z
UID:TALK195847@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Max Wong
DESCRIPTION:*10:00-10:40 Rakesh Arul - Bridging the visible and invisible 
 worlds by looking through gold nanoparticles*\n\nLooking at the world with
  infrared (IR) light enables medical professionals to identify diseases\, 
 environmental scientists to monitor greenhouse gases\, and the new James W
 ebb Space Telescope to view the early universe. However\, unlike visible l
 ight detection\, IR detection is not widely applied due to existing techno
 logies being inefficient\, prohibitively expensive\, and impractical. To c
 ircumvent this\, we take advantage of the high efficiency of visible silic
 on detectors to help us detect IR. This can be accomplished using molecule
 s that simultaneously absorb both visible and IR light and subsequently em
 it visible luminescence. While theoretically proposed in 1959 [1]\, realis
 ing this has proved challenging due to the fundamental mismatch between th
 e wavelengths involved of visible (500 nm)\, IR light (10\,000 nm) and mol
 ecular sizes (1 nm). To solve this problem\, we use nanoparticle assemblie
 s that can simultaneously squeeze visible and IR light down to the scale o
 f a single molecule. Firstly\, we use micron-sized spheres on a mirror to 
 create nanocavities that trap IR light to the atomic limit and show conver
 sion of IR light to visible light from a single molecule [2]. We termed th
 is process mid-infrared vibrationally assisted luminescence [3]. Next\, to
  expand to larger scale IR sensing\, we use self-assembled Au nanoparticle
  multilayers which support collective plasmon-polariton resonances and sho
 w world record-breaking IR optical field enhancements [4]. \n\nReferences\
 n[1] Bloembergen\, N. (1959). Solid state infrared quantum counters. Physi
 cal Review Letters\, 2(3)\, 84.\n[2] Chikkaraddy\, R.\, Arul\, R.\, Jakob\
 , L. A.\, & Baumberg\, J. J. (2022). Single-molecule mid-IR detection thro
 ugh vibrationally assisted luminescence. arXiv preprint:2205.07792. \n[3] 
 Arul\, R.\, Baumberg\, J.J.\, Chikkaraddy\, R.\, & Xomalis\, A. Mid-infrar
 ed detector (14 Mar 2022). UK Patent Application No. 2203507.5.\n[4] Arul\
 , R.\, Benjamin-Grys\, D.\, Chikkaraddy\, R.\, Mueller\, N. S.\, Xomalis\,
  A.\, Miele\, E.\, Euser\, T.E. & Baumberg\, J. J. (2022). Giant mid-IR re
 sonant coupling to molecular vibrations in sub-nm gaps of plasmonic multil
 ayer metafilms. Light: Science and Applications. 11\, 281.\n\n*10:40-11:20
  Dorothea Boeken - Understanding Alzheimer’s Disease\, one molecule at a
  time*\n\nAlzheimer’s disease is currently one of the leading causes of 
 death worldwide\, yet the underlying mechanisms of the disease remain to b
 e understood. One of the key signs of the disease is that a protein named 
 tau starts to accumulate in neurons\, leading to their death and irreversi
 ble neurodegeneration. We are trying to develop techniques that allow us t
 o look at those tau deposits at the molecular level and characterise them 
 one by one. By doing this\, we can pinpoint the most harmful types of tau 
 deposits and gain a better understanding of how the disease develops. Furt
 her\, these tools are highly promising in diagnostics for the early detect
 ion of Alzheimer’s disease in blood samples.\n\n*11:20-12:00 Savvas Cons
 tantinou - Remote Sensing of Exoplanet Atmospheres with JWST Transmission 
 Spectroscopy*\n\nThe James Webb Space Telescope revolution has begun. Offe
 ring a generational improvement in sensitivity\, wavelength coverage and r
 esolution\, JWST is set to revolutionise our understanding of exoplanet at
 mospheres. Taking full advantage of such high-quality observations\, howev
 er\, requires a significant advancement in the sophistication of atmospher
 ic retrievals\, the tools used to constrain atmospheric properties from ob
 servations. In this talk I will give an overview of the advances that exop
 lanet transmission spectroscopy and atmospheric retrievals have enabled ov
 er the last decade. I will then present my own work\, seeking to understan
 d what atmospheric constraints JWST enables and what features a next-gener
 ation atmospheric retrieval framework should have. To do this\, I carried 
 out the first detailed retrieval study on the JWST transmission spectrum o
 f the hot Saturn WASP-39b obtained through the Early Release Science progr
 amme. This results in detections and abundance constraints for CO2\, SO2\,
  H2O and CO\, as well as tentative indications of H2S. Their concentration
 s indicate elemental abundances consistent with Saturn's metallicity. I wi
 ll also present how such high quality data enable constraints on the prope
 rties of Mie scattering aerosols\, including their composition and modal s
 ize\, motivating their consideration in next-generation retrieval framewor
 ks. Lastly\, I will discuss key lessons learnt from these first retrievals
  on JWST spectra of exoplanets.\n\n*Lunch Break*\n\n*13:30-13:50 Ruslan Ko
 tlyarov - Found In Translation: Using Language Models To Predict C–H Bor
 ylation Regioselectivity*\n\nBy treating chemical reactions as a machine t
 ranslation task\, it is possible to successfully predict a wide range of c
 hemical reaction outcomes using text-based representation as only input (S
 chwaller 2019). We investigated how encoder-decoder transformer models can
  be fine-tuned to predict regioselectivity for the pharmaceutically releva
 nt C–H borylation. We found our model performance is comparable to state
  of the art deep learning models trained on the same amount of data but fu
 rther investigation is needed on how well it generalises to new substrates
 .\n\n*13:50-14:30 Kyle Frohna - A Glorious Mess: Understanding Nanoscale D
 isorder in Next-Generation Solar Cells*\n\nIn the pursuit of cheaper\, fle
 xible and higher efficiency solar panels\, scientists around the world hav
 e been developing new materials to challenge and potentially overthrow the
  incumbent silicon panels. These next generation solar cells are thin film
 s (normally ~500 times thinner than Silicon cells)\, are often deposited w
 ith low cost techniques and consist of materials such as organics\, copper
  indium gallium selenide or the focus of this talk\, metal-halide perovski
 tes. Perovskites in particular have shown the fastest increase in solar ce
 ll performance in history. While these materials all share promise for pho
 tovoltaics\, they also have in common massive disorder on multiple length 
 scales ranging from macroscopic down to the atomic. This disorder has larg
 e implications for their operational stability and their optical/electroni
 c behaviour. In this talk\, I will present some of our work on metal halid
 e perovskite solar cells to uncover the origins of this messiness at the s
 mallest length scales and how it affects the behaviour of the solar cells 
 and their stability.\n\n*14:30-15:15 Prof. David Baulcombe - Food security
 : the pros and cons of GM and gene editing as solutions to disease in crop
 s*\n\n*15:15-15:55 Abhishek Upadhyay - Biological clocks and timers - from
  fungi\, plants to animals – a signature of life*\n\nChronobiology is th
 e study of periodically occurring physiological\, metabolic\, and behavior
 al processes in living organisms. Moreover\, Biological clocks and timers 
 are part and parcel of design principle of life on Earth.\n\nNotably\, Cir
 cadian rhythms (24 hr oscillations) have evolved across cyanobacteria\, al
 gae\, fungi\, insects\, plants and mammals based on daily interactions bet
 ween internal timing and environmental cues. Molecular circadian oscillato
 rs consist of a transcription-translation feedback loop (TTFL) allowing se
 lf-sustained rhythms. How these rhythms are generated and how they are ent
 rained (“synchronized"") by external zeitgebers i.e.\, light\, temperatu
 re\, nutrients\, is poorly understood.\n\nFurthermore\, many developmental
  processes repeat rhythmically. For example\, rhythmicity in somite format
 ion is ensured through a ‘clock’ mechanism where a Hes transcription f
 actor inhibits its own transcription\, yielding oscillatory activity. To w
 hat degree such genetically-encoded oscillators originate and function in 
 other developmental rhythms contexts\, for example C. elegans oscillator (
 8 hr periodicity)\, is unknown.\n\nI took up multiple theoretical and expe
 rimental approaches and utilised multiple model organisms across the kingd
 oms of life: filamentous fungi (Neurospora crassa)\, terrestrial plant (Ar
 abidopsis thaliana) and nematode animal (Caenorhabditis elegans) to study 
 above mentioned questions. My conceptual\, semi-quantitative\, and data-dr
 iven quantitative mathematical modelling\, and time course omics experimen
 ts combined with computational data analysis revealed answers to those que
 stions.\n\nI will present my published and unpublished results to discuss 
 how multiple protein phosphorylations provide long delay and act as molecu
 lar switches required for the origin of circadian rhythms. Moreover\, I wi
 ll discuss how temperature cycles put the molecular circadian clockwork in
  phase with external signal. Furthermore\, I will share my discovery of os
 cillations at proteome and phosphoproteome levels in a developmental clock
 \n\n*Tea Break*\n\n*16:10-16:30 Alberto Echevarría-Poza - MRI of injured 
 plant cell walls?*\n\nHave you ever wondered why apples are crunchy? Or wh
 y wood is so hard? The answer is… the plant cell wall! You probably have
  heard of cellulose before\, but\, that’s just one out of the many\, man
 y different\, essential polymers making up the plant cell wall. I used MRI
 \, oops\, I mean\, NMR to investigate the interaction between those compon
 ents at a molecular level\, and\, particularly how the conformations of ce
 llulose and xylan (the second most abundant polysaccharide in the cell wal
 l and… on earth!) seem to change upon mutations that result in shorter a
 nd scarcer xylan. \n\n*16:30-17:15 Prof. Grae Worster - Aerogels*\n\n*17:1
 5-17:55 Prof. Judith Driscoll - Memory materials*\n\n[Some abstracts are T
 BD]
LOCATION:The Winstanley Lecture Hall\, Trinity College\, Cambridge
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