Cameron Smith and Christophe Vannahme
Cameron L. C. Smith and Christoph Vannahme, both from DTU Nanotech, have received the elite research award for talented young researchers “ Sapere Aude – Ung Eliteforsk” from the Danish Council for Independent Research (DFF). Sapere Aude is a special research career program dedicated to support the most talented researchers. It also works as a launching point for the research elite when applying for international funding.
Cameron Smith has received the grant for the project “High precision DNA mapping”. The research field is optical physics, and the aim of the project is to develop a new unit for cancer treatment, which will enable the possibility of parallel identification of specific DNA mutations. One of the main focus areas within cancer research is the identification of different kinds of cancer by looking at how the person’s DNA changes from cell to cell. Unfortunately current technologies are expensive, time-consuming and not very precise. The aim of this project is to develop a cheap, fast and exact way of decoding DNA from many cells simultaneously, and in this way improve cancer research, -diagnosis and -treatment.
Read more about Cameron Smith's project on The Danish Council for Independent Research's homepage.
Christoph Vannahme’s research is within the field of Micro- and Nanophotonics, and he has received the grant for the project “Sustainable biological lasers”. In the project Christoph will develop photonic crystal lasers which are made of biological material only. These lasers will thus be sustainable and they will be developed as sensors for signaling proteins which are secreted from cells. The presence of proteins will result in a change of the lasers’ emission wavelength which is used as sensor signal. Therefore, the lasers will have to be very sensitive and stable in aqueous solution. For finding the most suitable biological lasers, Christoph will investigate various biological materials and encapsulations of these.
Read more about Christoph Vannahme's project on The Danish Council for Independent Research's homepage