Surface interactions are omnipresent in nature and represent the key to understanding most chemical and physical processes. Specifically, the vast majority of fundamental biological interactions involve surfaces e.g., down to the molecular level where diffusion is regulated through cell membranes, or more macroscopically where cartilage and synovial fluid minimise friction within a joint. Despite their critical involvement, however, interfaces often remain elusive owing to their minute proportion of the total bulk material which renders most spectroscopies insensitive to their detection. Nevertheless, advances in spectroscopic techniques have made it possible to chemically probe such species via specialist methods such as Attenuated Total Internal Reflection (ATR) FTIR spectroscopy, Sum-Frequency Generation (SFG) spectroscopy, or Atomic Force Microscopy coupled with Infrared Spectroscopy (AFM-IR). My research has focussed on utilising such advanced techniques to study the fundamental structure and processes occurring in a large variety of biological substrates as well as developing these methods specifically for the challenges associated with characterising delicate and potentially air-sensitive species.

Join Zoom-Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/98688464199?pwd=R3hYaWtPaGVVREh2YVNMSkFQMThEQT09
Meeting-ID: 986 8846 4199
Passcode: 610922