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Liam John Collard

Post-doctoral researcher
Researcher
Multifunctional Neural Interfaces with deep-brain regions
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About

Dr Collard is an interdisciplinary post-doctoral researcher working on the Nanobright project in IIT Lecce since 2019. He graduated with a 1st class honors degree in mathematics at the University of Leicester in 2013 and then completed a PhD with a thesis titled "Shape transformations in optically trapped particles and minimal surfaces: An experimental and theoretical study" at the University of Leicester in 2017. From 2017-2019 he worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Nottingham school of physics working on Raman spectroscopy and lipid vesicles. 

In September 2019 he joined the European FET OPEN project Nanobright, aimed at developing a new generation of optical neural interfaces to bring plasmonics to the human brain. During the project he has been responsible for developing two bespoke optical setups designed to achieve spatially resolved plasmonic sensing at the tip of hair thin optical fiber. This resulted in two main peer reviewed publications in APL photonics (Editors pick, 2021), where a holographic method was used to finely tune the emission angle from an optical fiber and Small (2022), where he demonstrated spatially resolved, sub-cellular resolution plasmonic sensing at the tip of a fiber optic. A patent is also pending on the latter work.  Overall, he is interested in developing novel biosensers for the brain based on plasmonics, Raman spectroscopy, holography and optical fibers and more recently machine learning. 

Throughout his career, he has collaborated with researchers from a diverse range of scientific backgrounds and has assisted in the supervision of numerous undergraduate and postgraduate students. He has presented his work at numerous conferences (OSA, Optogen, MNE) and funding events (Medtech) and has also acted as a peer reviewer for Optica publishing group, Light science and applications and Elsevier.

Top Publications
2022
Collard L., Pisano F., Zheng D., Balena A., Kashif M.F., Pisanello M., D'Orazio A., de la Prida L.M., Ciraci C., Grande M., De Vittorio M., Pisanello F.
Holographic Manipulation of Nanostructured Fiber Optics Enables Spatially-Resolved, Reconfigurable Optical Control of Plasmonic Local Field Enhancement and SERS
Small, vol. 18, (no. 23)
2022
Zheng D., Pisano F., Collard L., Balena A., Pisanello M., Spagnolo B., Mach-Battle R., Tantussi F., Carbone L., De Angelis F., Valiente M., Liset D.L.P., Ciracì C., De Vittorio M., Pisanello F.
Toward Plasmonic Neural Probes: SERS Detection of Neurotransmitters through Gold Nanoislands-decorated Tapered Optical fibers with sub-10 nm Gaps
Advanced Materials
2021
Collard L., Pisano F., Pisanello M., Balena A., De Vittorio M., Pisanello F.
Wavefront engineering for controlled structuring of far-field intensity and phase patterns from multimodal optical fibers
APL Photonics, vol. 6, (no. 5)
2020
Faraj B.H.A., Collard L., Cliffe R., Blount L.A., Lonnen R., Wallis R., Andrew P.W., Hudson A.J.
Formation of pre-pore complexes of pneumolysin is accompanied by a decrease in short-range order of lipid molecules throughout vesicle bilayers
Scientific Reports, vol. 10, (no. 1)
2019
Collard L., Sinjab F., Notingher I.
Raman Spectroscopy Study of Curvature-Mediated Lipid Packing and Sorting in Single Lipid Vesicles
Biophysical Journal, vol. 117, (no. 9), pp. 1589-1598
All Publications
2023
Collard L., Pisano F., Zheng D., Balena A., Piscopo L., Kashif M. K., Pisanello M., de la Prida L. M., Ciracì C., Grande M., De Vittorio M., Pisanello F.
Holographic control of plasmonic fiber optics
Optogen 2023
Poster Conference
2023
Collard L., Pisano F., Zheng D., Balena A., Piscopo L., Kashif M. K., Pisanello M., de la Prida L. M., Ciracì C., Grande M., De Vittorio M., Pisanello F.
Holographic control of plasmonic structures on the distal facet of multimode optical fibers
META 2023, the 13th International Conference on Metamaterials, Photonic Crystals and Plasmonics
Report Conference
2023
Collard L.
Machine learning-augmented Raman endoscopy of brain tissue with multimode optical fibres
RAISE project meeting Genova 12.07.2023
Report Conference
2023
Collard L., Pisano F., Zheng D., Balena A., Kashif M. K., Pisanello M., Spagnolo B., Mach-Batlle R., D'Orazio A., De Angelis F., Valiente M., de la Prida L. M., Ciracì C., Grande M., Pisanello F., De Vittorio M.
Nanostructured fiber optics for high sensitivity, minimally invasive, spatially-resolved, plasmonic diagnosis and therapeutics
ICTON 2023
Report Conference
2023
Collard L., Pisano F., Zheng D., Balena A., Piscopo L., Kashif M. K., Pisanello M., Ciracì C., De Vittorio M., Pisanello F.
Spatially resolved plasmonic sensing at the tip of a multimode fiber
SPIE EBO23 European Conferences on Biomedical Optics
Report Conference
Awards and Achievements
2021
Collard L., Pisano F., Pisanello M., Balena A., De Vittorio M., Pisanello F.
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