Quantum sensors for cellular metabolism study (Q4Met)

This project Q4Met will deliver novel methods to study cellular metabolism by quantum sensors based on fluorescent nanodiamonds.

Currently, it is hardly possible to measure temperature or ion transport in a single living cell without negative disturbance. Nanodiamonds with color centers have all necessary characteristics for cell investigations: nanoscale size, nontoxicity, high sensitivity to temperature and magnetic field. As proven by earlier experiments, nanodiamond-based quantum sensors can be a key research instrument in biological and medical studies.

However, real biological applications face various difficulties. This project will focus on solving these challenges which come from the biological systems: environmental fluctuations; separation of biological processes from external influence; optimization and automatization of in vivo experiments for statistical analysis.