DLS talk by Giulio Cerullo: “Novel approaches to broadband coherent Raman microscopy”
In our fourth event of 2025’s Distinguished Lecturer Series (DLS), Giulio Cerullo gave his talk “Novel approaches to broadband coherent Raman microscopy”. He is a Full Professor with the Physics Department, Politecnico di Milano, where he leads the Ultrafast Optical Spectroscopy laboratory, and a Miller Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley.
Giulio Cerullo’s research activity concerns both pushing our capabilities to generate and manipulate ultrashort light pulses, and using such pulses to capture the dynamics of ultrafast events in molecular and solid-state systems. He also works on the development and applications of novel nonlinear microscopy techniques.
In his talk at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL), Giulio Cerullo explored new ways to examine the chemical composition of cells and tissues using an advanced form of optical microscopy. The technique, called Coherent Raman Scattering (CRS) microscopy, allows to scientists look inside biological samples without needing dyes or labels – just by analyzing how the characteristic vibrations of the constituting molecules respond to light. With respect to the standard and well-known spontaneous Raman microscopy, CRS excites all the molecules simultaneously and forces them to oscillate in phase, greatly increasing the acquisition speed. While current implementations of CRS can struggle when different chemicals give off similar signals, Prof. Cerullo introduced two enhanced versions of CRS which can capture a wider range of chemical information very quickly.
In the last part of his presentation, Prof. Cerullo described his ongoing efforts to move CRS technology from the research labs into clinical diagnostics. This development, which resulted in the foundation of a spin-off-company, Cambridge Raman Imaging, may open important prospects for precision medicine. “The workflow of histopathology,” comments Prof. Cerullo, “is more than a century old. Tissue biopsies are first chemically colored and then viewed by the doctor under an optical microscope. Our CRS microscope can scan a tissue biopsy in a matter of minutes and deliver information not only on the cells’ morphology, but also on their chemical composition. In combination with a suitably trained AI, this approach has the potential to revolutionize medical diagnostics and determine not only the presence of a malignancy in a biopsy, but also its type and grade.”
DLS brings leading minds in all fields relevant to the science of light to Erlangen. The speakers present their research to a broad audience, enabling scientific exchange.
Past talks are available on our YouTube channel in the DLS playlist.
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