The Living Photonics (LiPhos) project is a European Commission funded project of which Prof. Jens Ducree is a partner.

LiPhos is focused on the development of innovative biophotonic diagnostic tools using cells as the constituent material. In this context, cells play a two-fold role:

i) they form a biomaterial with higher refractive index than the surrounding media, thus defining the waveguide; and

ii) they are interrogated by the light coupled into them, and act as reporter elements to exhibit a unique spectral response.

The advantage of this configuration is a highly-efficient cell-light interaction, making it possible to diagnose diseases by measuring the photonic fingerprint (PIN).

This ground-breaking method will give rise to a powerful analytical tool, which could be applied to study and diagnose a disease at the cell culture or tissue level.

The project received over a total of €4 million in funding. More information can be found on the project website at www. liphos.eu.