Expedition into the Nanoworld

The story of microscopy over the years is one of wonder, revelation, and even love. What better words could there be to describe the amazing things that we have been able to see, learn and accomplish thanks to the progress made in this field? A love story between a pieace of glass and the rainbow with an original soundtrack mad of poetry and music.

From Galilei's initial foray into basic optical microscopy, including the Camillo Golgi and Giuliano Toraldo di Francia lessons, to such later developments as time-resolved microscopy, multi-photon microscopy and three-dimensional microscopy to innovations such as optical nanoscopy, bioimaging and super resolution imaging, the book seeks to take the reader, be they scientist or layperson, on a journey through the evolution of the microscope and its many uses, including in the field of medicine. 

The author uses visible light as a through-line to unite the various chapters, as well as using fluorescence as a touchpoint from which to map the changes in the science, a significant choice, as it, along with label-free approaches and the addition of artificial intelligence, form the natural environment for development of the modern multi-messenger microscope towards bioimaging at the nanoscale.

Alberto Diaspro isFull Professor of Applied Physics at the Department of Physics at Genoa University, Scientific Director of the Nanoscopy research program at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), and Academic of the Ligurian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He is Member of the New York Academy of Sciences. He has served as President of OWLS and EBSA and as Appointed Vice President of ICO. He founded LAMBS (Laboratory for Advanced Microscopy, Bioimaging and Spectroscopy) in 2003. Professor Diaspro is responsible for designing and realizing the first Italian multiphoton microscope (1999) and a hybrid artificial 'nanobiorobot' (2000-2005). He directed the design and realization of the first Italian nanoscopy architecture at IIT (2008). His current research is on chromatin organization in the cell nucleus and multimodal optical microscopy and image spectroscopy sensing. He has published more than 350 papers, >16000 citations, and H=60 (source Google Scholar). He is Editor-in-Chief of the international peer revied journal Microscopy Research and Technique. He is SPIE fellow, Senior Member of IEEE and OSA, and Editorial Board Member of the Biophysical Journal. He received the Emily M. Gray Award in 2014 and the Award for Scientific Communication from the Italian Physical Society in 2019. Since 2016, Professor Diaspro is President of the Scientific Council of the 'Festival of Science' (www.festivalscienza.it). Since 2021 he is President of SIBPA, the italian society of pure and applied biophysics.