University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (UCBL) is a multidisciplinary university in the primary fields of physics, chemistry, technical and material sciences, life sciences, medicine and pharmacy. The University has 67 state-funded research units in which more than 2900 professors and assistant professors – of which 700 are also hospital practitioners – are involved in both fundamental and applied research. This leads to the involvement of UCBL in more than 4500 internationally published articles and 40 patents per year, making UCBL the 41st most innovative university in Europe in 2019). UCBL is involved in the VIRUSong project through the Institute of Light and Matter.
Institute of Light and Matter
The Institute of Light and Matter is concerned essentially with the study of matter and its physico-chemical properties from a fundamental point of view but always keeping in mind applications in the fields of health, energy and environment. Two teams are involved:
-The ‘Luminescence‘ team has a longstanding experience on the study of optical and vibrational properties of solids, nanoparticles and plasma. The team develops as well material synthesis and has therefore skill in colloidal growth for nanoparticles synthesis. Among all activities of the team inelastic light scattering spectroscopies to investigate the mechanical properties of viruses enters fully in the scope of the team research areas. The team has been developing now since a few years an activity in nano-optics aiming to analyze the optical properties of nanoparticles down to single particle level.
-The ‘SpectroBio’ team objectives are to study the structure and dynamics of molecules and nano-objects in a controlled environment, and their applications in catalysis and optical imaging. In particular, the team is developing original cutting-edge experimental tools such as ion mobility, electrostatic storage devices and laser imaging configurations.
Jérémie Margueritat
Jérémie Margueritat is a researcher at the Institute of Light and Matter since 2011. He is a member of the ILM’s « Luminescence » team since 2019. Jérémie Margueritat obtained has achieved a doctorate between the “Instituto de Optica” (CSIC) in Madrid (Spain) and the CEMES in Toulouse (France) and got his double PhD from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid and the University Paul Sabatier in 2008. He obtained a research position at the CNRS in 2011 to conduct research into the use of acoustic vibrations of nanoparticles to characterise the mechanical properties of materials at the nanometric scale. In particular, he uses ultra-low frequency inelastic light scattering spectroscopies (Brillouin and Raman) to acquire the vibration frequency of the nano-object of interest, and has developed a device capable of detecting the vibration of a single nano-object (>50 nm in diameter).
As part of the VIRUSong project, he will transfer his know-how to acquire the vibration signature of virus (-like) particles with a view to identifying them, and will coordinate the efforts of the project partners to achieve this objective. Jérémie was the coordinator of the NANOVIP ANR Young research project (2013-2016) in which has led to the first observation of mechanical coupling between a dimer of gold nanoparticles bound by a polymer as well as the observation of acoustic hybridization using inelastic light scattering spectroscopy. Since 2018, he has been heavily involved in the development of nanoplatelets as nanobalances that can be used to weigh ligands and viruses. His work has resulted in 52 peer-reviewed articles. The total number of citations is over 1200, leading to an h-index of 21 (WOS) and 23 (Google Scholar).
