Advances in biology in the past half a century have been greatly facilitated by the emergence of new physical tools such as DNA sequencing technique and X-ray crystallography. However, to have a functional understanding of a living organism obviously requires much more in between. In particular, we need to understand the crucial chemical interactions occurring in space and time. From many other studies we now know that those interactions are highly dynamic in time, heterogeneous in space, and complex in nature. That is exactly where imaging comes to the picture, visualize those chemical interactions in space-and-time, and help make biology a quantitative science. After all, seeing is believing!

    Therefore, it is not surprising to see that optical bio-imaging is one of fastest growing fields at the interface of physical science and life science -- many versatile and powerful imaging modalities are now emerging. As a group working at the interface of molecular spectroscopy and optical microscopy, we are trying to develop novel optical bio-imaging techniques and to apply them to tackle compelling biological questions. We collaborate with a number of leading laboratories worldwide in specific projects.