Physics professor’s method of viewing cells in real time without harming them improves on methods awarded a Nobel prize in 2014

Microscopy, the practice of using microscopes to view objects that can’t be seen with the naked eye, has advanced significantly over the last 15 years.

Biological samples can now be observed at subcellular level, offering new insight into the workings of individual cells and even molecules.

But there’s a problem: nobody has developed a solution that allows scientists to use higher resolution imaging and at the same time view objects in real time. Some technologies are even destructive to cell samples.

And this is where Pearlabs comes in. The imaging technology company, recently spun out of University College Dublin (UCD), has created a microchip-based system that allows users to view objects far beyond the diffraction limit of light.

The company, founded by Dominic Zerulla, a professor at the school of physics in UCD, believes its invention could surpass existing best practice in microscopy, improving on methods that were awarded a Nobel prize in 2014. In the process, Pearlabs hopes to transform the understanding of processes such as cell signalling and cell proliferation in cancer.

The idea for Pearlabs came about after Zerulla, an expert in plasmonics and nano-optics, had a “eureka” moment one day in the laboratory.

“He had this moment when he thought: what if we could use the properties of plasmonics – short range, electromagnetic rays – as a quasi-light source for microscopes? He realised quickly that it could provide a solution to a big problem in microscopy,” Jurgen Osing, Pearlabs’ commercial lead, said.

“To understand disease mechanisms, you want to see what’s happening at the subcellular, molecular level, and you want to do it on a continuous basis with real-time imaging. But it hasn’t been possible to combine those two things until now. The technology that Professor Zerulla developed can do both. You can see in front of your eyes how subcellular particles are moving, how cells communicate with each other.”

Pearlabs has already developed a lab-based prototype which Osing said looked “very promising”. “We can image structures with the resolution down to 20 nanometres, and that’s only with what are essentially home-manufactured nano-emitters.”

Now the firm, which recently won the Viewers’ Choice Award at Enterprise Ireland’s Big Ideas conference, is seeking €1 million in funding to help bring its product to market.

“We have a great prototype, but our next milestone is developing a minimum viable product that we can bring to scientists and have it validated for real biological systems imaging,” Osing said.

“We have to get this optical chip technology developed to a proper semiconductor process, and we’re talking to a number of semiconductor companies to achieve that in the next 18 to 24 months.”

In the medium term, Pearlabs hopes to work on a B2B basis, charging microscope equipment manufacturers for the use of its “imaging engine” which can be integrated into lab microscopes.

It might only be at the outset of its journey, but Pearlabs expects to become a fully fledged commercial entity within the next year. It plans to hire five full-time staff next year and double that the following year.

“In year five we hope to have up to 25 or 30 employees,” Osing said.

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