Hof Fluorescence Group

About the group

The Hof Fluorescence Group is a part of the Biophysical Chemistry Department at the Jaroslav Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (AS CR).

M. Hof started to build up the group in 1999. As a starting investment the JH-Institute bought a basic FCS Microscope (Zeiss). In 2001 the lab was extended by additional rooms and equipment (mainly, TCSPC and steady state fluorimeters (Horiba JY). The confocal microscope was extended for Fluorescence Lifetime FCS. The growth of the laboratory was heavily supported by the home institute as well as by Czech science foundations. In 2005 The Academy of Sciences financed the built up of a Time Resolved Single Molecule Sensitive Confocal Fluorescence Microscope (PicoQuant/Olympus) and the group became part of the newly founded Department of Biophysical Chemistry. In 2006 the group became the coordinator of the National Research Centre "Advanced Fluorescence Microscopy in Biological and Medical Sciences"that is financed by the Ministry of Education.

A number of individuals joined the group including Post-docs ( A.Benda, J.Humpoličkova, P.Jurkiewicz, T.Kral, J.Sýkora). In recent years three students obtained a PhD degree (A.Benda, J.Humpoličkova, J.Sýkora) and further students were enrolled in postgraduate (A.Olżyńska, A.Miszta, J.Barucha, A.Zań, R.Machan, L.Beranová, R.Šachl and A. Semerádtová, M.Štefl) as well as graduate studies (V.Fagulová).

A short overview:

We are interested in the development of new fluorescence methods and their application in the research of structure, functionality and dynamics of biomembranes; single molecule spectroscopy in biological systems, dynamics characterization in model and biomembranes on the picosecond to millisecond time scale; characterisation of DNA condensation processes relevant to gene therapy; advanced in vivo fluorescence microscopy.

There is a wide range of methods we employ in our studies. These range from the Solvent Relaxation (SR), Ellipsometry, Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS), to the newly developed Fluorescence Lifetime Correlation Spectroscopy (FLCS).