Yann Cesbron is a PhD student developing photothermal microscopy, a novel single-molecule technique, for biological imaging in the group of Dr Raphaël Lévy at the University of Liverpool.

His first research interest was the dynamics of equilibrium polymers that he studied by Monte Carlo simulations during his MSc (Master) in Condensed matter physics. He then moved to experimental soft matter physics to investigate the formation of vesicles from a supported lipid bilayer during a second MSc in Polymer materials. Both MScs were obtained at the University Louis Pasteur (Strasbourg, France).

During his PhD, he has built the first UK photothermal microscope for long-term single-molecule imaging in living cells using metal nanoparticles as probes (in collaboration with Professor Brahim Lounis, Bordeaux). The nanoparticles are functionalized with a peptide self-assembled monolayer. The entry of peptide-capped gold nanoparticles by endocytosis in mammalian cells and their delivery in the cytosol were studied with a combination of fluorescence, photothermal and transmission electron microscopy.

In the second part of his PhD, he aims to go beyond delivery and provided new insights into some of the important questions of modern biology. In particular, he will focus on the dynamics of transcription factors and their binding to DNA.