Get your money back with AI
An AI assistant helped resolve a stalled VPN support request and secure a four-month subscription extension. The useful return was less time and attention spent chasing it.
Visualising RPM motion with a digital twin
A new clip brings together a 3D random positioning machine model, gravity-direction displays and sample-frame and actuator telemetry.
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The hangover you can’t sleep off? A lower starting salary.
University life is an incredible journey – a time of immense learning, growth, new friendships, and yes, a fair bit of navigating newfound freedoms and pressures. It’s a period where you are shaping not just your understanding of your chosen subject, but also the person you are becoming and the future you are building. Part
Large Language Models: How Our Lab embraces AI
In our lab, we’re not just observing the AI revolution—we’re living it. We’re actively integrating AI, especially Large Language Models (LLMs), to fundamentally change how we do science. This isn’t about replacing your expertise; it’s about giving you superpowers to be more efficient, insightful, and impactful in your research, all while upholding the highest standards
Do you need a host for a MSCA fellowship (2025)?
Having re-established my laboratory at Brunel University of London, I am now open to supporting junior researchers interested in applying for independent funding through the EU MSCA scheme. I offer a uniquely interdisciplinary research environment, access to cutting-edge expertise and training, and a broad network of UK and international collaborators. Brunel University is well connected
The transition post…
I resume writing after a while and just for a ‘short’ update. The last two-three years have been quite tough. Yes of course there was the pandemic. As tough as it was for most of u...
1D heat flow in a metal (mini-lecture)
I have recently presented a mini-lecture about thermal physics. It was part of an interview and rather off-topic relatively to my research. I had fun diving back into ‘pure’ physics and I thought to share the material I presented. I also built and brought with me in the auditorium this 1m copper rod to visualize
A virtual tour of my labs at the MRC Cancer Unit
All photos are 3D pictures, it was fun to try out the technology. Regrettably, the MRC defunded the MRC Cancer Unit and the School of Clinical Medicine could no longer support our Department. In the current academic job market, I am experiencing some uncertainties about where I will relocate. This is thus one of my
On the misuse of case studies: a case study
Our organization is committed to equality, diversity and inclusiveness. For example, Dr Clara Madeup benefitted from our ‘return to work’ programme that permitted her to come back to work after an extended 2 years maternity break. Clara is now a tenure track associate professor leading in the field of biotechnology. How many Claras and Johns
Against (online) abuse
English football has announced a three days boycott of social media to raise awareness against online abuse. I am no footballer and I even do not follow football but I follow Formula One, and thanks to Lewis Hamilton engagement against racism I got aware of this initiative. Sport should be all about coming together in
A brief journey to India, and into models of carcinogenesis
In early 2016, I was asked if I wished to speak at the discussion meeting “Conflict and Competition in Cellular Populations” in Bangalore, India organized by Dr Sandeep Krishna and Dr Sunil Laxman (NCBS). The title sounded so intriguing that I accepted without even checking the actual topic of the meeting. Then an adventure begun,
Changing of the Guard
I more excited than other times for a talk I will deliver next week. When invited, I read the list of speakers and I noticed so many names of people whose science I follow very closely. This time something is different though. I read their papers since I am a student, papers they published perhaps
COVID | data analysis (new CAAT 4.3 release)
WARNING. I am not a medical doctor nor an epidemiologist. The analysis I am sharing here is only for the data geeks around that are curious. Please follow the advice of your national authorities and health system. I have just published a new release of CAAT, Matlab code to analyse Johns Hopkins dataset on the
Reviewer 3 | A semi-serious discussion
I guess that if you landed here, you know what I am referring to, but let me clarify the subject of this post for the benefit of the youngest scientists. During peer-review, we get good and bad feedback, either deserved or not. We can then respond and revise our work. However, it is not rare
Managing risk in the lab at the times of coronavirus
In the UK, we are waiting for good news to reopen our laboratories. Well, not ‘waiting’ but getting ready. It might be in two weeks or two months but we have to be ready because if we will be ‘back to normal’, we will have new outbreaks. In science, we are lucky as we are
Covid (v3) – data visualizations
WARNING. I am not a medical doctor nor an epidemiologist. The analysis I am sharing here is only for the data geeks around that are curious. Please follow the advice of your national authorities and health system. Let me publish this short update on the COVID pandemic to share some of the most interesting visualizations
Corona virus – data mining (v2)
WARNING. I am not a medical doctor nor an epidemiologist. The analysis I am sharing here is only for the data geeks around that are curious. Please follow advice of your national authorities and health system. NOTE: For a more comprehensive blog post, you might be interested in Tomas Pueyo’s website. A good discussion about
Coronavirus – data mining
WARNING. I am not a medical doctor nor an epidemiologist. The analysis I am sharing here is only for the data geeks around that are curious. Please follow advice of your national authorities and health system.NOTE. This post was updated on 15/3. The data | The data repository for the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Visual Dashboard
Coronavirus – getting ready in a lab
I am publishing here the recommendations I circulated to my colleagues, as this might help others to formulate their strategies or me to receive suggestions on how to improve. At the bottom of the post I also share my opinion about the situation, just to explain why we are taking action. Disclosure: I am no
Publishing: a business transaction
Until not so long time ago, desk-rejections (the editor decision not to proceed with peer-review of a submitted manuscript) or even rejections of a manuscript after peer-review with very little substance for that decision, could get me angry, at least in private. These emotions can motivate to do better, but most of the time –
Lost in translation (dogma and science)
Once in a while I hear or read about dogmas as if they were models. I came to realize that some people might not be aware what a dogma is and before the (mis)use of this word spread even further, I hope you will agree to get it back into its original meaning. The Oxford
Don’t fret about it, just get it (a FRET primer – Part I)
Why should you know FRET? Well, FRET is used when you do a real-time qPCR, or you might be using it in assays like HTRF, or to detect biochemical reactions in single living cells. You might measure protein-protein interactions, probe cell signalling, cell metabolism or nano-meter scale conformational changes. Or what about dimerization, protein –
Signor Tenente (a song against mafia)
My holidays are spent with the nose into papers and the hands on the computer keyboard, working on quinquennial report. But I am back to my family in Italy, specifically in Sanremo, city of flowers, city of music, as it used to be the largest flower market and an important production center of flowers, and
The coming year, talking about war
We have to be optimistic and hoping in a prosperous future for everybody, particularly in this period of the year, but optimism on its own makes very little to avoid sliding towards avoidable catastrophes. We can hope no storm will hit our towns in 2020 and live a happy life. At the same time, we
Tackling cancer heterogeneity by live single-cell ‘systems biology’.
NOTE: This assay is the introduction to my research vision I wrote five years ago but that did not make into the programme grant we wrote. I think this is still current and, as it is unlikely I will publish this text, I am releasing it in the public domain with very little editing. I
Be kind to people
“I have worked hard for three years and now that I believe I understand the mechanism, the funding is over”. “I am at the third referee round in five different submissions and I am always getting different requests”. “My grant was not funded because of insufficient preliminary results”. “I do not understand why they got
My remembrance day, a pledge for peace in support of soldiers
As an immigrant in the UK, it took some time to understand the deeper meaning of the remembrance day. In fact, remembrance day is lived by different British people in different ways, and to truly embrace this event, one has to stare a red poppy and feel what it means for them. You should have
It is yellow, the two proteins must interact!
In fluorescence microscopy, colocalization is the spatial correlation between two different fluorescent labels. Often, we tag two proteins in a cell with distinct fluorescent labels, and we look if and where the staining localizes. When there is a “significant overlap” between the two signals we say that the two molecules “colocalize” and we might use
The Space Race | STEM outreach activities for primary schools
Well, we are not rocket scientists but we could not miss the opportunity to speak about the space race at the Science Day of our local Primary School so close to the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. The inspiration came from the book “Space Race” by Deborah Cadbury. After reading it, a summary of the
Is the average between a cat and a dog a real animal?
Is it a cat? Is it a dog? Is the average between a cat and a dog a real thing, perhaps a caog or a doat? Not all science should be based on single cell detection, and there are plenty of cases where single cell measurements are superfluous. However, too often we fail to appreciate the huge mistakes
Passion, Silos and Friction: a personal account of free roaming between disciplines
There are grants, there are great words written, there seems to be strong support, but how working between disciplines really work? Let me tell you at least how this has worked for me. This is a long read, but if you do not wish to go at the bottom of it, my advice (sadly) is
Slaughterhouse.ac | cattle walks to the slaughterhouse happy
Although I am no expert in livestock production and food chains, I do recall debates on making abattoirs more humane by ensuring that animals are not aware of their fate. In other words, the poor bovine should not see other fellow animals being slaughtered fearing for their lives in a long and slow-progressing queue towards
A ‘hyper-dimensional radio’ to listen to the biochemical communications of the cell
Industry, academia and healthcare often rely on fluorescence microscopy to see the fine architecture of materials, including biological ones. Fluorescence microscopy is particularly suited for biomedical studies because it can be gentle with biological materials permitting investigators to study biology in a non-destructive manner. Chemistry and genetic engineering then provide useful strategies to make samples
At FLIM impact (Episode I)
What has been the impact of fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy to science and to the biomedical community in particular? Is FLIM a niche technique, one of those techniques that always promise but never deliver? The top 10 most cited papers Excluding reviews, the list of the top 10 most cited papers, albeit representing a very
Snap opinion on deep-learning for super-resolution and denoising
I am personally conflicted on this topic. I have recently started to work on machine learning and deep-learning specifically. Therefore, I am keen to explore the usefulness of these technologies, and I hope they will remove bottlenecks from our assays. My knowledge about CNNs is rather limited, even more so for SR and denoising applications.
This is what happens when you attend Focus on Microscopy for a few years…
Most of the times, I write this blog for those two youngsters that might learn something by accidentally landing here. I wished to share with you a few things that might happen when you age, at least academically speaking. This is what happens when you attend FoM for a few years… *** I have met
Our superpower is you (first draft)
This is a preliminary draft for a leaflet aimed at outreach events. Following the work we have done on Women in STEM at the last year Cambridge Science Festival, this year we’ll add a second leaflet to be more inclusive. This will be a word search puzzle that we will release into the public domain
The backstage story of a paper. Highs, lows, lessons to learn
Since a few months, the manuscript entitled “Multiplexed biochemical imaging reveals caspase activation patterns underlying single cell fate“, and authored by Maximilian W Fries, Kalina T Haas, Suzan Ber, John Saganty, Emma K Richardson, Ashok R Venkitaraman, Alessandro Esposito, is available as pre-print at the bioRxiv repository. It has started its journey through the peer-review process,
This is ATLAS.ONE (a high speed high resolution biochemical imaging platform)
Project ATLAS In 2018, we decided to invest capital funds provided by the MRC and the MRC-DBT with the aim to make our technologies more accessible to the biomedical researcher laying down also the possibility to deliver advanced biophysical assays at high throughput [REF1] with a focus on 3D cultures. Why ATLAS? I often code-name internal projects,
![[Open hardware] A safe laser by-pass](/wp-media/2018/11/20181112_184735.jpg)
[Open hardware] A safe laser by-pass
Well, I remember when I started this business, a beam stop was done with a recycled block of lead and reflections stopped with carton boxes 😉 Brown boxes, black carton catches fires, of course (tell this to my undergrad-self). Not any longer, of course! About ten years ago, I started the procurement and development of
Sharing is caring: an open access FLIM trial
Are you interested in cell biochemistry, but in single living cells, organoids or tissues? Is there a Western blot or IP you wished to do on a living sample? Or did you wish to see where in a cell a protein-protein interaction occurs. Well, if you are interested in quantifying a ligand concentration, a post-translational
SOP – Ti:Sapphire / Leica SP5 alignment
This SOP is published only for a social media discussion. The author does not take any responsibility for the utilization of this procedure. The system discussed here is a customized two-photon microscope, based on a Coherent Chameleon Vision 2 and Leica SP5. The optical path is fully enclosed and the SOP is written for maintenance.
NyxBits and NyxSense? What?!
NyxSense&NyxBits paper here. I am not fond of new achronyms or ‘cool’ names, but then… guilty! you got me, I am contributing to the proliferation of four letters acronyms and fancy names like others! Lately, I have introduced a new one, HDIM as for Hyper-Dimensional Imaging Microscopy. But that is another story, and in a
Embrace your public speaking anxiety
About a decade ago, I went to a PI during a retreat to ask a question. Nervously, but politely, he asked me to be left alone as he was rather anxious for a talk he was about to deliver. A few hours later, a PhD student at the time, I was freaking out for my
[TALK] Goldilocks and the two ERKs; signalling in the ‘sweet spot’ underpins resistance to ERK pathway inhibitors
Friday 14/09 at 14.30 | Dr. Simon Cook (Signalling Laboratory, The Babraham Institute) will present the following talk, at the Clifford Allbutt Lecture Theatre, Clifford Allbutt Building (former LMB building). All welcome to attend. Goldilocks and the two ERKs; signalling in the ‘sweet spot’ underpins resistance to ERK pathway inhibitors Simon Cook, Signalling Laboratory, The
1984 – A BREXIT tale
British people are lucky, as they have a wealth of literature to read from, a rich history to learn from and a great number of world-leading experts to listen to. They also have a lot of selfish, ideologically-biased and intellectually dishonest politicians to listen to. Not that all politicians are dishonest, but many – if
Volume rendering: is this localization-based super-resolution?
Project outcome published in Biophysical Journal in 2010. Esposito A*, Choimet JB, Skepper JN, Mauritz JMA, Lew VL, Kaminski CF, Tiffert T, “Quantitative imaging of human red blood cells infected with Plasmodium falciparum“, Biophys. J., 99(3):953-960 Most papers have an untold backstory that we cannot reveal in it so to focus on a main message and
Photon partitioning theorem and biochemical resolving power
Project outcome published in PLoS ONE in 2013. Esposito A*, Popleteeva M, Venkitaraman AR, “Maximizing the biochemical resolving power in fluorescence microscopy”, PLOS ONE, 8(10):e77392 After my 2007 theoretical work on photon-economy and acquisition throughput, I occasionally worked on a more general framework attempting to falsify my hypothesis that multi-channel or multi-parametric imaging techniques can
Women in science (Cambridge Science Festival 2018)
This is one of the initiatives we have prepared for the Cambridge Science Festival 2018. Credit: Dr Suzan Ber. We are committed to the best quality of scientific research and to facilitate the translation of scientific knowledge into improvements in healthcare. To improve people lives, we need the brightest minds and the most skilled individuals
The dysfunctional digital office (emails)
January 2018 has been a watershed moment for me for something very simple and important such as… emails. Back from Christmas Holidays after visiting family and friends in sunny Italy, I was confronted with a wall of emails like many other professionals and colleagues. I had experienced this every year for many years, but this
Are sexual harassment and misconduct issues at Universities?
Over the last year, the widespread occurrence of sexual harassment and misconduct in the movie industry hit the news helping, with the amplification of social media, to raise the extent of the problem to public awareness, not just in Hollywood, but in everyday life of women. Have you wondered if sexual harassment is an issue
Moral hazard in academic governance (the University of Bath, emerging protests and leading changes in society)
Moral hazard Over the last decades we have seen everything about the good and the bad of free market economy; we have learnt a lot about the consequences of moral hazard. Moral hazard is the tendency for one person to engage in riskier behaviour when the consequences of this behaviour will be dealt by others.
What is life?
Preamble In this assay, I describe reflections on biological systems and the nature of life. If you do not know it, the title is an obvious reference to the famous Schrodinger’s assay that motivated many physicists to create the branch of science that is Biophysics. In its current stage, these words are not written with the intent to
The ‘no asshole’ rule
Do you know when you are at the airport with some time to kill, and you go to a bookstore? Do you know that revolving shelf with business-oriented books suggesting how you will have a great career if you read them, yes, the one just near the other shelf with books on mindfulness, homoeopathy and
It is Crunch Time for Early Career Scientists.
In mid-2016, I read this Nature News about the payment of overtime for USA post-doctoral scientists and the possibility that this would lead to fewer positions available. This article inspired a post I published on LinkedIn, that I would like to repropose in a radically updated form. In the original post, the premise was overtime
Open Access: is that… cheating?
Open Access is established to guarantee free access, redistribution and use of primary research. Open Access makes available to the public what has been funded by the public, therefore, democratizing access to knowledge. I support these ideas so much that I believe Open Access, in its current form, is… cheating or – at least –
Which is the best model system for biomedical research? None, all model systems are wrong.
Which is the best model system for biomedical research? None, all model systems are wrong, but before I explain myself, let me tell you a story. One day I attended a retreat of the Molecular Physiology of the Brain Centre in Goettingen, and I genuinely had fun. Two things will remain in my memory. First,