The International Baltic Biophysics Conference (BBC-2024), which is held for the fourth time, attracts more and more interested researchers from all over the world. The aim of the conference is to gather researchers in the field of biophysics from Baltic States and the entire Baltic Sea region to share their newest knowledge and the progress on the application of Biophysical methods in life sciences. The main scopes are on Biophotonics, Photosynthesis, Biomedical physics & engineering, Neurobiophysics, Nanomedicine & Theranostics, Advanced microscopy & Bio-imaging, Novel Nanomaterials in the life sciences, and Electric field effects on the biological systems. This year, as usual, a large number of members of the LRC Advanced Biomedical Photonics Group participated in BBC-2024, which was held in the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Kaunas.
The moments of the 4th International conference Baltic Biophysics Conference.
Prof. Saulius Bagdonas gave an oral presentation on self-assembling TPPS4 J-aggregates and the research was carried out with co-authors from Hungary dr. Parveen Akhtar and dr. Petar Lambrev from HUN-REN Biological Research Centre. Dr. Petar Lambrev who also visited the LRC, the audience of conference was interested in the invited talk about inter-subunit energy transfer in photosynthetic supercomplexes observed by two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy, the research was carried out at ELI-ALPS, Szeged.
Master's student Rasa Miliukaitė presented her research on photoactive magnesium chlorophyllin on microalgae, conducted during the student research semester funded by the Lithuanian Science Council. Additional knowledge about these photoactive biomolecules on the spectroscopic properties and the photostability of quantum dots was revealed by master's student Marija Kalnaitytė. The Laser Research Center scientist and a member of the Scientific organizing committee of this conference, dr. Agnė Kalnaitytė-Vengelienė summarized and presented the work done in studying the effects of Cu-based quantum dots on green microalgae.
Photograph of Elena Osteikaitė, a junior research assistant at the Laser Research Center and a winner of the best poster presentation in BBC-2024.
Students of adj. prof. Virginijus Barzda got everyone very interested in the presented research on the applications of Nonlinear Optical Microscopy in cancer diagnostics. PhD student Viktoras Mažeika prepared an abstract about Double Stokes polarimetry, and Bachelor’s student Austėja Bareikytė prepared a poster about prostate cancer imaging. However, the poster evaluation committee was most impressed by the master‘s student Elena Osteikaitė and her work was awarded the title of the best poster presentation. A young scientist of the Laser Research Center attended the conference with a presentation of her research topic on non-linear microscopy in cervical cancer diagnosis and explained the principles of second and thirds harmonic generation (SHG & THG) in the collagen molecules with included the use of statistical methods. The research‘s aim was to determine the structural and orientation differences of cancerous and healthy collagen molecules. Such method could benefit the histopathology field, by providing additional information about the analysed sample.
For more information about the BBC-2024 conference please visit the 4th Baltic Biophysics Conference website (https://bbc.lbfd.lt/) and about future conferences - Lithuanian Biophysical Society website (https://lbfd.lt/en/news/).