Lichtgedanken 03

S C HW E R P U N K T 29 03 | LICHT GEDANKEN and disease conditions,« explains Belya- ev, who is doing his doctoral research at the HKI. He refers to some diagrams on his computer, which are based on investigating the morphokinetics of the neutrophils. »As a result, we know that we should take this aspect into account when performing the microfluidics tests with whole blood. That takes us a big step further.« The Russian physicist is working on the BLOODi project for one reason: »Scientific curiosity.« It is clear to me that this is also what drives his colleagues. With BLOODi, Alessandra Marolda values the fact that blood is studied in different ways and the results are brought together in the group. »Here, we approach a problem from various different angles and try to solve it together,« she notes. She and the other researchers have a good two years left for this work, after which the pro- ject will come to an end. In view of the significant initial results, Figge is opti- mistic. »We can learn a lot from the dy- namics of whole blood. The snapshots that we have obtained so far give us hope that we will find characteristic biomarkers for pathogens, and that in future we will be able to make quicker prognoses regarding infections.« »BLOODi« is a subproject of the Leibniz ScienceCampus »InfectoOptics«. Resear- chers from both Life Sciences and Optics/ Photonics are working closely together in an effort to understand and fight infectious diseases better with the aid of innovati- ve optical technologies. Project partners include Friedrich Schiller University Jena, the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Re- search and Infection Biology—Hans Knöll Institute (HKI), the Leibniz Institute for Pho- tonic Technologies (IPHT), the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering (IOF), the Institute of Molecular Pathogenesis at the Friedrich Loeffler Ins- titute, the Federal Research Institute for Animal Health (FLI), as well as BLINK AG. Fundamental to droplet-based microflui- dics is a chip (Photo). Doctoral candidate Susanne Pfeifenbring checks the setting of a laser using an infrared viewing device. In the BLOODi project, blood cells are irradiated with laser pulses in order to find out, by means of their oscillation spectrum, which blood cells are involved and whether they have had contact with pathogens.