DOC Fellowship for Vienna BioCenter PhD student Alessandro Passera
The Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) has awarded one of its competitive DOC fellowship to a Vienna BioCenter PhD student at the IMP: Alessandro Passera’s research on single-molecule fluorescence microscopy will be supported for the next three years.
Alessandro Passera is a PhD student in the lab of Francisco Balzarotti. His research centres on two single-molecule fluorescence microscopy techniques, MINFLUX and DNA-PAINT.
“I have a mixed biology and physics background, and thanks to that, I see myself in a good position to combine the two techniques,” says Alessandro. MINFLUX uses structured illumination to localise fluorescent molecules with extremely high accuracy, in the range of nanometres. DNA-PAINT is a robust single-molecule microscopy technique. One of main aims of the Balzarotti lab is pushing the methods to new technical highs. “As part of my project, I am developing a new multiplexing strategy, which is well suited to MINFLUX microscopy.” Alessadro’s ultimate aim is to provide a tool that allows the observation of numerous targets in cellular system at the scale of nanometres.
Alessandro joined the lab of Francisco Balzarotti in 2020. Prior to that, he did his undergraduate and Master studies at the Università di Pisa (Italy). Research stays have taken him to Boston (US), Cambridge (UK), and Stockholm (Sweden).
DOC Fellowships of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) are awarded to “highly qualified doctoral candidates” in any area of research. In addition to financial support, the competitive nature of DOC fellowship mean that they are an important indicator for academic excellence.
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