Lucia Gardini

I am an experimental biophysicicst working on the development and application of single-molecule tracking and super-resolution fluorescence microscopy techniques. Through these techniques I study the biophysics of biomolecules in vitro, in cells and in thick samples. I have also been working of the development of Optical Tweezers with application to the study of biomolecules interacting with DNA and cytoskeletal polymers, and on the combination of optical manipulation with optical microscopy to study mechanotransduction at the cellular level (both mammalian and plant). I work in close collaboration with clinical groups (Meyer and the Mario Serio Department of Biomedical, Experimental and Clinical Sciences in Florence) and other Departments of the University of Florence (Molecular and Cellular Mechanobiology Lab of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, DAGRI and Dipartimento di Medicina Sperimentale e Clinica). I am associate researcher at the European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectrscopy (LENS) in Florence.