Design and Application of Sensors for Bioimaging

Over the last two decades, the development and applications of optical chemical sensors and bio-imaging agents have been pursued with great interest by many researchers. There is a tremendous potential for employing such methods in diverse areas, such as the determination of pollutants in the environment or that of bioactive small molecules in living systems. This talk attempts to address three key problems. Firstly, to detect the real time distribution of toxic heavy metals i.e. Hg2+; secondly, to design and synthesise carbon dot-based probes for toxic quinone derivatives; and finally to visualize and quantify monoamine neurotransmitter (MNT) like serotonin (5-HT) and dopamine (DA) in live cells and in living organisms  (e.g. zebrafish). I will talk about how tools of organic synthesis, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (in solution) and optical imaging methods help us tease out the critical roles of the respective analytes in these model systems.