People

 

Principal Investigator

Virginijus Barzda

Prof. Barzda is a Professor at the Departments of Physics, and Chemical and Physical Sciences, University of Toronto. His research includes the development of novel imaging modalities for nonlinear optical microscopy. He developed a wide range of microscopy techniques that employ second-harmonic generation (SHG), third-harmonic generation (THG) and multiphoton excitation fluorescence image contrast for non-invasive label-free imaging of biological structures, live cells, and subcellular organelles. He focuses on the ultrastructural characterization of biological tissues with nonlinear polarimetric microscopy methods. The ultrastructural imaging is applied to study the organization of collagen in cancer tissue and to investigate contractility mechanisms in cardiac and skeletal muscles. In addition, he develops novel labels for nonlinear microscopy and studies photosynthetic structures.

 

Group Members

Serguei Kroulglov
Research Associate

Serguei obtained his Ph.D. from the Institute of Physics Academy of Sciences of Belarus (Minsk), where he worked as a Research Associate for ten years. He was a visiting Professor for Quantum Field Theory at Nankai University (China) and Professor at Belarus University (Minsk) before moving to Toronto as a researcher and teacher at International Educational Centre Toronto. He joined the University of Toronto as a sessional lecturer and since 2014 he has been a Research Associate working with Prof. Barzda.

Ahmad Golaraei

Post-doctoral Fellow

Ahmad obtained his BSc and MSc in Physics from Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic) in Iran. He joined Barzda lab in 2012 as a Ph.D. student. The focus of his Ph.D. work was studying the structural properties of collagen in biological tissues using polarization-resolved second-harmonic generation microscopy. He used collagen structural properties to differentiate between normal and cancerous human tissues. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in our lab as well as in Prof. Brian Wilson's group at Princess Margaret Cancer Research Centre where he is developing a stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscope.

Kamdin Mirsanaye

Ph.D. Candidate

Kamdin obtained his Honours BSc in Mathematical Physics at Simon Fraser University, in British Columbia (2016). He joined Barzda lab as an MSc student and studied the ultrastructural properties of collagen in the conductive system of the heart using polarimetric second-harmonic generation microscopy (2017). As a Ph.D. candidate, Kamdin is developing a Spectral-resolved polarimetric nonlinear microscopy technique to investigate fundamental properties of nonlinear light-matter interactions. He is also involved with the construction of a wide-field microscope for fast, and high-resolution imaging.

Leonardo Uribe

Ph.D. Candidate

Leonardo obtained his BSc (2014) at Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia) and his MSc (2016) at the University of Toronto (Canada). His Areas of interest include nonlinear optical interactions, quantum mechanics foundations and quantum non-locality applications. He joined the Barzda group in Fall 2016, and his research focuses on Second harmonic wide-field microscopy for dynamic imaging of large areas and efficient second harmonic generation using highly correlated photons.
 
Abiramy Karunendiran

Ph.D. Candidate

Abi obtained her BSc at the University of Toronto Mississauga with a double major in biology and physics and she continues to work at the interface of these two disciplines co-supervised by Dr. Bryan Stewart.  She completed her MSc studies on the use of third harmonic generation microscopy to monitor the development of the Drosophila compound eye. She now continues her Ph.D. work studying the structure and development of muscle using polarization-based second-harmonic generation microscopy.

Fayez Habach

NSERC summer student

Previous GROUP Members

Postdoctoral Fellows:

2015-2018       Masood Samim

2015-2017       Haitao Zhao- Currently an optics scientist at Wise Device Inc. (WDI)

2012-2017       Richard Cisek- Currently a research associate at the Department of Chemistry at Saint Mary's University

2014-2014       Danielle Tokarz- Currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemistry at Saint Mary's University

2013-2014       Daaf Sandkuijl- Currently a senior optical scientist at Fluidigm Corporation

2004-2006       Arkady Major- Currently a Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Manitoba

2003/03-10     Donatas Zigmantas- Currently an associate professor at the Department of Chemistry at Lund University

 

Doctoral students:

2012-2018       Ahmad Golaraei, “Polarimetric Second Harmonic Generation Microscopy for Histopathology”- Currently a postdoctoral fellow and Princess Margaret Cancer Research Centre

2012-2017       Lukas Kontenis, “Experimental Nonlinear Polarimetric Microscopy”- Currently an R&D engineer at Light Conversion (Lithuania)

2009-2015       Masood Samim, “Nonlinear Polarimetric Microscopy for Biomedical Imaging”

2009-2014       Danielle Tokarz, “Nonlinear Optical Properties of Carotenoid and Chlorophyll Harmonophores”- Currently an Assistant Professor at Department of Chemistry at Saint Mary's University

2008-2013       Adam Tuer, “Nonlinear microscopy for histology”

2007-2013       Daaf Sandkuijl, “New harmonic generation microscopy techniques based on focal volume modeling”- Currently a senior optical scientist at Fluidigm Corporation

2005-2014       Nicole Prent, “Characterization of muscle contraction with second harmonic generation microscopy”- Currently a college professor at Okanagan College

2003-2012       Richard Cisek, “Structural investigation of biological and semiconductor nanostructures with nonlinear multicontrast microscopy”- Currently a research associate at Department of Chemistry at Saint Mary's University

2003-2008       Catherine Greenhalgh, “Nonlinear multicontrast microscopy for structural and dynamic investigations of myocytes”- Currently a senior optical systems designer at Raytheon ELCAN Optical Technologies

 

Master’s students:

2016-2017       Kamdin Mirsanaye, “Characterization of Human Cardiac Tissue Structure with Polarization-Dependent Second-Harmonic Generation Microscopy”

2014-2015       Abiramy Karunendiran, “Development of fruit fly eye studied with nonlinear optical microscopy”

2014-2015       Ian Tretyakov, “Spectrally-resolved time-correlated single-photon-counting microscopy”

2013-2014       Maria Correa, “Analysis of peroxisomes movement: Active and passive transport through the actin filament”

2011-2012       Lukas Kontenis, "Design and evaluation of a second-harmonic microscope with forward and sideways detection channels"

2008-2009       Danielle Tokarz, “Development of harmonophores for nonlinear microscopy”

2006-2007       Shuo Li, “Fluid inclusion analysis in quartz using second and third harmonic generation microscopy”

2006-2007       Gurinderpal Grang, “Investigation of peroxisomes with nonlinear microscopy”

2004-2005       Nicole Prent, “Imaging biological structures and visualizing changing transmembrane potential gradients with harmonic generation and multiphoton excitation fluorescence microscopy”

 

Undergraduate students:

Faiyza Alam
Vaishnavi Raja
Yeji Ro
Ahmed Ellithy
Wayne Bonnet
Sang Park
Russ Algar
Oscar Cisek
Michal Hodal
Maike-Svenja Milkereit
James Mccrae
Gerardo Quiroz
Gautham Radhakrishnan
Chantal Greenhalgh
Anshudeep Mathur
Andy Chow
Alexey Borshch