News and Press

Access Highlight at FELIX: Gold clusters - gentle bond breakers Access Highlight at FELIX: Gold clusters - gentle bond breakers

Synthesis of large carbohydrates is an energy-consuming multi-step process. Therefore, scientists are looking for a catalyst enabling a direct chemical reaction from feedstock molecule methane to larger carbohydrates. Gold nanoclusters seem to be a promising candidate for such a catalyst. In a recent transnational access project performed at FELIX Laboratory (Nijmegen, The Netherlands) an international collaboration consisting of researchers from Radboud University in Nijmegen, Georgia Tech University in Atlanta, US, and Ulm University in Germany, used infrared radiation to show that tiny gold particles can be used to selectively break one single C-H bond in methane. The results of the project were published in the prestigious chemical journal Angewandte Chemie.

Access Highlight at ICFO: Imaging tissue mimics with light sheet microscopy Access Highlight at ICFO: Imaging tissue mimics   with light sheet microscopy

Artificially grown three-dimensional pieces of tissue are increasingly used to study cell growth and disease progression in biomedical research. These so-called tissue mimics can be observed using a technique called Light Sheet Fluorescence Microscopy. In a recent Laserlab transnational access project, the groups of Pablo Loza-Alvarez (ICFO) and Corinne Lorenzo (ITAV, Université de Toulouse) collaborated to compare the effectiveness of different light sheet illumination modalities for complex 3D samples. The findings of their study were published in Scientific Reports.