Postdoc position available in BurkeLab on nano-bio interface. Contact Professor Burke if interested.
An immediate position is open in BurkeLab for a BME student with background in cell culture and fluorescence microscopy for the following project:
Project title: Role of mitochondria ultrastructure in chemotherapies studied by super-resolution microscopy.
The mitochondrial structure at the nanoscale controls cellular bioenergetics but also apoptosis. BurkeLab has a project funded by the National Cancer Institute to investigate the role of various chemotherapies on mitochondrial control of cell death. One of the candidate drugs has shown extension of lifespan in mice tumor models and the mechanism is believed to involve mitochondria (Cui, Liyang, Arvin M. Gouw, Edward L. LaGory, Shenghao Guo, Nabeel Attarwala, Yao Tang, Ji Qi et al. “Mitochondrial copper depletion suppresses triple-negative breast cancer in mice.” Nature biotechnology 39, no. 3 (2021): 357-367.). However, the details of the effect on mitochondria function have not been elucidated. The project aims to use recently invented techniques in BurkeLab (ChiaHung Lee, Douglas C. Wallace, and Peter J. Burke “Super-Resolution Imaging of Voltages in the Interior of Individual, Vital Mitochondria” ACS Nano, https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.3c02768(2023),) to image the voltage inside live vital mitochondria with super-resolution microscopy in order to assess cell viability, apoptosis, and metabolism of cell cultures under differing pharmacological manipulations. As the project develops, BurkeLab will also be using quantum sensors to enhance functionality of probes of cell biology, electrophysiology, and mitochondrial function.
Please reach out to Dr. Burke directly if interesting in arranging a rotation, pburke@uci.edu
An immediate PhD position for a physics student is available in BurkeLab for a quantum sensor project described below. The physics student would be in charge of the RF pi pulse electronics, and the qubit dephasing rate readout with super resolution optical microscopy.
Project title: Quantum entangled probes of cell electrophysiology
Abstract: The objectives of this proposal are to develop and exploit quantum entanglement for sensing in neural and organelle electrophysiology and biology. Our hypothesis is that, by using entangled spin pairs in sub – 10 nm nano-diamond in cells, incorporated into the plasma membrane, that we can sense the electric and magnetic fields of the cell wall (action potential in a neuron, astrocyte) above the electromagnetic noise due to the milieu of chemical and other background using a correlated, field gradient measurement. This would be the first ever demonstration of any man-made entangled system in a living biological system (a cultured neuron). If proven, the concept is scalable to a non-invasive 3d quantum camera of neural activity at a massively parallel scale. The long term significance of this work is that, if quantum sensors can be integrated into the lipid bilayer membrane, this quantum sensing technology can be applied in many areas of cell biology where quantum biology effects may be expected to play a physiological role. This includes membranes which contain cryptochromes, cytochromes, and other protein complexes with unpaired electrons giving quantum spin behavior not seen in other biochemical effects. These reside mostly in the bilayer of organelles such as mitochondria, which play a large energetic role in astrocytes and neurons, and hence are an important potential link between quantum mechanics and bioenergetics/metabolism.