Applied Life Photonics at HKU - Alphahku

Applied Life Photonics at HKU - Alphahku We are a group of young energetic talents - having fun together with optics and photonics.

Applications of photonic technologies are ubiquitous โ€“ ranging from basic science, telecommunications to medicine. New innovations in photonics, particularly spurred by cross-disciplinary inspirations, continue to impact these areas and constantly redefines our knowledge and the new standards. The main research focus in our group, Applied Life Photonics at HKU (AlphaHKU), is on developing new phot

onic tools which help solve a myriad of critical problems in biomedicine, life science and basic physics. Main interests particularly include development of ultrafast optical bioimaging and spectroscopy platforms. One key vision is to exploit a new generation of high-data-volume measurement and analytical strategies applied in basic science and biomedicine, such as high-throughput and high-content single cell analysis.

๐ŸŽ„ ๐€๐๐ฏ๐ž๐ง๐ญ ๐‚๐š๐ฅ๐ž๐ง๐๐š๐ซ โ€“ ๐ƒ๐ž๐œ ๐Ÿ๐Ÿ‘๐ŸŽ„๐Ÿงžโ€โ™€๏ธ Excited to share ๐Œ๐จ๐ซ๐ฉ๐ก๐จ๐†๐ž๐ง๐ข๐ž is now online Communications. ๐Œ๐จ๐ซ๐ฉ๐ก๐จ๐†๐ž๐ง๐ข๐ž is an unsupervis...
14/12/2025

๐ŸŽ„ ๐€๐๐ฏ๐ž๐ง๐ญ ๐‚๐š๐ฅ๐ž๐ง๐๐š๐ซ โ€“ ๐ƒ๐ž๐œ ๐Ÿ๐Ÿ‘๐ŸŽ„
๐Ÿงžโ€โ™€๏ธ Excited to share ๐Œ๐จ๐ซ๐ฉ๐ก๐จ๐†๐ž๐ง๐ข๐ž is now online Communications.

๐Œ๐จ๐ซ๐ฉ๐ก๐จ๐†๐ž๐ง๐ข๐ž is an unsupervised deep-learning framework that allows automated and human interpretable morphological profiling of cells - generalizable across imaging modalities even without retraining

๐Ÿงžโ€โ™€๏ธ+ ๐Ÿค– This ๐Œ๐จ๐ซ๐ฉ๐ก๐จ๐†๐ž๐ง๐ข๐ž can also fit naturally into agentic AI workflows, especially as a perception + interpretation module for microscopy. ๐Ÿ˜Ž

Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-66267-w

11/12/2025

๐ŸŽ„ ๐€๐๐ฏ๐ž๐ง๐ญ ๐‚๐š๐ฅ๐ž๐ง๐๐š๐ซ โ€“ ๐ƒ๐ž๐œ ๐Ÿ— ๐ŸŽ„
๐…๐€๐‚๐„๐ƒ ๐Ÿ.๐ŸŽ ๐ข๐ฌ ๐Ÿ๐ข๐ง๐š๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐ฉ๐ฎ๐›๐ฅ๐ข๐ฌ๐ก๐ž๐ in Nature Methods!

๐Ÿง ๐Ÿ”ฌOur new paper introduces ๐…๐€๐‚๐„๐ƒ ๐Ÿ.๐ŸŽ, a newโ€‘generation, highโ€‘resolution kilohertz-frame-rate two-photon microscope that brings together:
- Up to ๐Ÿ,๐Ÿ”๐ŸŽ๐ŸŽ ๐Ÿ๐ฉ๐ฌ in 2D.
- ๐Œ๐ข๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ข๐ฆ๐ž๐ญ๐ž๐ซ-๐ฌ๐œ๐š๐ฅ๐ž ๐…๐Ž๐•๐ฌ ๐š๐ง๐ ๐Ÿ‘๐ƒ ๐ฏ๐จ๐ฅ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ž๐ฌ in vivo, deep in awake mouse cortex
- Continuous data streaming at ~๐ŸŽ.๐Ÿ๐Ÿ” ๐†๐/๐ฌ, supporting uninterrupted high-speed brain activity recordingsโ€”often the bottleneck in multiphoton imaging.

๐Ÿ’ก Led by (and Kudos to) Na Ji's lab, this ๐…๐€๐‚๐„๐ƒ ๐Ÿ.๐ŸŽ system brings together speed, scale, and 3D resolution, enabling circuit-level questions to be tackled at the level of thousands of single neurons on millisecond timescales:

1. ๐๐จ๐ฉ๐ฎ๐ฅ๐š๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง (200+neurons) ๐ญ๐ฐ๐จโ€‘๐ฉ๐ก๐จ๐ญ๐จ๐ง direct ๐ฏ๐จ๐ฅ๐ญ๐š๐ ๐ž ๐ข๐ฆ๐š๐ ๐ข๐ง๐  ๐ข๐ง ๐š๐ฐ๐š๐ค๐ž ๐ฆ๐จ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ž ๐›๐ซ๐š๐ข๐ง
This opens up powerful new ways to develop and test neural circuit models directly from population voltage data.

2. ๐‹๐š๐ซ๐ ๐ž-๐ฌ๐œ๐š๐ฅ๐ž ๐Ÿ‘๐ƒ ๐ญ๐ฐ๐จ-๐ฉ๐ก๐จ๐ญ๐จ๐ง ๐œ๐š๐ฅ๐œ๐ข๐ฎ๐ฆ ๐ข๐ฆ๐š๐ ๐ข๐ง๐  ๐ข๐ง ๐ฆ๐จ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ž ๐š๐ง๐ ๐ฅ๐š๐ซ๐ฏ๐š๐ฅ ๐ณ๐ž๐›๐ซ๐š๐Ÿ๐ข๐ฌ๐ก
~12,000โ€“14,000 neurons in mouse visual cortex across 100's microns in depth, recovering orientation/direction tuning statistics that previously needed many animals. Whole-brain calcium imaging in larval zebrafish at 10+ volumes/s, with activity from thousands of neurons in a single dataset.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-025-02925-7

Hosting a lab tour for secondary school students! Thanks for visiting our lab and hope you all enjoyed the fun of bioima...
12/05/2025

Hosting a lab tour for secondary school students! Thanks for visiting our lab and hope you all enjoyed the fun of bioimaging and science !

๐ŸŽ‰๐ŸŽ‰Congratulation to Letitia, our PhD student, for receiving the Best Poster Presentation Award at HKU Research Postgradu...
15/03/2025

๐ŸŽ‰๐ŸŽ‰Congratulation to Letitia, our PhD student, for receiving the Best Poster Presentation Award at HKU Research Postgraduate Symposium 2025! ๐Ÿง Sheโ€™s been working on developing new generative deep learning method for advancing brain imaging and thus neuroscience research applications.

๐ŸŽ„Xโ€™mas Party 2024 in 1970โ€™s vintage! ๐ŸŽ„Not a full team yet, but full of laughters and joy! Wish everyone a Merry Xโ€™mas an...
17/12/2024

๐ŸŽ„Xโ€™mas Party 2024 in 1970โ€™s vintage! ๐ŸŽ„Not a full team yet, but full of laughters and joy! Wish everyone a Merry Xโ€™mas and Happy New Year! โค๏ธCarry each other and carry on

๐ŸŽ“๐ŸŽ‰๐ŸŽ‰Congratulation to Victor !! Another PhD graduated from our group in a slightly untraditional way. ๐Ÿงœ๐Ÿปโ€โ™‚๏ธ๐Ÿฆ–
03/12/2024

๐ŸŽ“๐ŸŽ‰๐ŸŽ‰Congratulation to Victor !! Another PhD graduated from our group in a slightly untraditional way. ๐Ÿงœ๐Ÿปโ€โ™‚๏ธ๐Ÿฆ–

๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡นOur postdocs Michelle and Victor just presented their work at IEEE Photonics Conference (IPC) in Rome, Italy this week...
16/11/2024

๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡นOur postdocs Michelle and Victor just presented their work at IEEE Photonics Conference (IPC) in Rome, Italy this week! Shared their work on generative AI for cytometry and a novel imaging based cell assay for CRISPR screen - and experienced ancient Roman history ๐Ÿ›๏ธ

๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ•We just visited Institute of Applied Sciences & Intelligent Systems, CNR - also delivered a seminar at University of ...
12/11/2024

๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ•We just visited Institute of Applied Sciences & Intelligent Systems, CNR - also delivered a seminar at University of Naples Federico II ! Beautiful weather, friendly hosts, and big local pizzas

Our group in Montreal ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ ๐Ÿhere for the 28th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Scie...
16/10/2024

Our group in Montreal ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ ๐Ÿhere for the 28th International Conference on Miniaturized Systems for Chemistry and Life Sciences - Micro-Total Analysis Systems (ยตTAS 2024)! ๐Ÿ˜Ž

This year we have a poster presentation (Kelvin Lee) and a keynote speech (Kevin K Tsia) - introducing our latest work on microfluidics and petabyte imaging cytometry!

When group meeting serves with a birthday cake ๐Ÿพ๐ŸŽ‚๐Ÿฐ
30/08/2024

When group meeting serves with a birthday cake ๐Ÿพ๐ŸŽ‚๐Ÿฐ

20/08/2024

[publication alert] ๐Ÿ””To do great AI, we need great microfluidics. ๐Ÿ˜‰Our recent ๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐˜€๐—ฝ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜€๐—ถ๐—ผ๐—ป-๐—ณ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐—ฒ ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜๐—ถ๐—ฎ๐—น ๐—ณ๐—ผ๐—ฐ๐˜‚๐˜€๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ( ) method is motivated by the need to get rid of โ€œGarbage in, garbage outโ€ in imaging flow cytometry! Without this microfluidic concept, cell images just never easily get sharp focus in fluidic flow! All these real-time ๐—ต๐—ถ๐—ด๐—ต-๐—พ๐˜‚๐—ฎ๐—น๐—ถ๐˜๐˜† single-cell optofluidic imaging and AI analytics wonโ€™t then be possible. Check out of recent paper in Lab-on-a-Chip, led by our postdoc Dr Kelvin Lee. https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2024/lc/d4lc00275j Also check out the team in bubble football behind this work!! Bubbles are all aligned and focused !

17/08/2024

Victor just finished his PhD thesis oral exam this week!! ๐Ÿพ๐Ÿพ His work is on the development of label-free cell imaging technology for drug and genetic screening!! Great work and effort !!

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