April 2026 — Congratulations to Amish, Xingjian, Mallory, and Yidan on the publication of their paper High dynamic range shortwave infrared (SWIR) imaging of mice with an InGaAs camera, published in the Journal of Biomedical Optics. This paper describes an HDR workflow for in vivo SWIR imaging that combines multiple exposures into a single radiance map, letting us capture both bright superficial fluorescence and dim deep-tissue signal in one image. We're looking forward to using this for our preclinical pharmacokinetic studies!
April 2026 — Congratulations to Thomas on defending his dissertation proposal!
February 2026 — Congratulations to Xingjian, Perry, and Savani on the publication of their paper Elemental Composition and Degradation Rate Impact the Biocompatibility of Copper Chalcogenide Nanocrystals, published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. This paper compares the degradation, elemental release, and cytotoxicity of three copper chalcogenide compositions (CuInS2, Cu2-xS, CuFeS2) encapsulated in lipid-PEG micelles, identifies indium as the major driver of CuInS2 cytotoxicity (cells have homeostasis mechanisms for iron but have no analogous methods for managing indium), and shows that a chelating polymer surface coating can slow the burst release of toxic ions and substantially reduce acute cytotoxicity. A great follow-up to our 2020 Nano Letters study on CIS in vivo toxicity!
December 2025 — Prof. Dennis helped organize a symposium on Luminescent Nanostructures for Biosensing, Bioimaging and Medicine and gave two invited talks at Pacifichem 2025 in Honolulu. Aloha!
November 2025 — Dennis Lab at the AIChE Annual Meeting in Boston! Mallory presented on deep-tissue in vivo cell tracking of micrometastatic peritoneal tumors, Warisha on high-throughput operator engineering for tunable aTF-based biosensors, and Amish gave both an oral and a poster (selected for the student dissertation awards session) on biostable PbS/CdS/ZnS quantum dots for HDR SWIR imaging. Prof. Dennis also gave an invited talk on engineering biostable SWIR quantum dots for longitudinal in vivo imaging. Great showing from the team!
September 2025 — Congratulations to Dr. Amish Patel on a successful PhD defense! We'll miss you in the lab, Amish.
May 2025 — Congratulations to Warisha on defending her dissertation proposal!
April 2025 — Prof. Dennis gave an invited talk on biostable PbS/CdS/ZnS quantum dots for longitudinal SWIR imaging at the Biophotonics Congress: Optics in the Life Sciences in Coronado, CA.
April 2025 — Congratulations to Dr. Xingjian Zhong on a successful PhD defense! Wishing you all the best on what comes next, Xingjian.
March 2025 — Congratulations to Mallory on defending her dissertation proposal!
January 2025 — Dennis Lab at SPIE Photonics West! Prof. Dennis gave two invited talks, and Amish presented his work on biostable lead sulfide quantum dots for longitudinal SWIR imaging — see the corresponding proceedings paper here.
January 2025 — Welcome to Maximo and Ayushmaan, who are joining the Dennis Lab for their PhD studies!
November 2024 — Congratulations to our collaborators in the Kłopotowski group at the Polish Academy of Sciences on the publication of Multimodal Temperature Readout Boosts the Performance of CuInS2/ZnS Quantum Dot Nanothermometers, published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.
October 2024 — Congratulations to Xingjian, Amish, Yidan, and Sasha on the publication of their paper Multiplexed Short-wave Infrared Imaging Highlights Anatomical Structures in Mice, published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. This paper demonstrates simultaneous multiplexed imaging of multiple anatomical structures in live mice using SWIR-emitting quantum dots with distinct emission profiles — a step toward more informative single-acquisition preclinical imaging.
September 2024 — Congratulations to Xingjian and our collaborators in the Bayer group at Tulane on the publication of Bornite (Cu5FeS4) nanocrystals as an ultrasmall biocompatible NIR-II contrast agent for photoacoustic imaging, published in Photoacoustics. Bornite provides substantially better NIR-II photoacoustic contrast than alternatives like ICG, copper sulfide, or gold nanorods. Exciting result!
August 2024 — Congratulations to Xingjian and our collaborators in the Reinhard group at BU on the publication of Direct Excitation Transfer in Plasmonic Metal-Chalcopyrite-Hybrids: Insights from Single Particle Line Shape Analysis, published in ACS Nano.
July 2024 — Congratulations to Xingjian and our collaborators in the Strouse group at Florida State on the publication of Iron Intermediate Band Governs Relaxation Kinetics of Bornite Plasmonic Semiconductor Nanocrystals, published in ACS Materials Letters.
July 2024 — A new NSF CHE-MSN grant starts today, in collaboration with the Reinhard group at BU, on interfacial excitation transfer in hybrid metal/chalcopyrite plasmonic nanostructures. Excited to keep this collaboration going!
June 2024 — Prof. Dennis gave the Technology Office Seminar at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Thank you for the warm welcome!
May 2024 — A busy academic year of invited talks! Prof. Dennis spoke at the University of Rochester (Chemistry, October 2023), University of Maryland (Bioengineering, December 2023), Tufts University (Electrical and Computer Engineering, February 2024), the American Chemical Society Spring Meeting (New Orleans, March 2024), and the 245th Electrochemical Society Meeting (San Francisco, May 2024). Thank you to all the hosts and organizers!
May 2024 — Welcome to Thomas, who is joining the Dennis Lab for his PhD studies!
March 2024 — Prof. Dennis gave an invited talk on multiplexed deep-tissue imaging with quantum dot fluorescent probes at Rice University's 25-year Bioengineering anniversary celebration. As a member of the first graduating class of B.S. in Bioengineering students from the department, it was a special homecoming!
January 2024 — Dennis Lab at SPIE Photonics West! Prof. Dennis gave an invited talk on multispectral SWIR imaging with quantum dots, and Xingjian was awarded 2nd place in the Ocean Optics Young Investigator Award competition for his proceedings paper on quantitative multiplexed SWIR imaging to study nanomedicine surface coatings in vivo. Congratulations, Xingjian!
November 2023 — Dennis Lab at the MRS Fall Meeting in Boston! Xingjian gave a talk on the relationship between degradation and toxicity of copper chalcogenide nanocrystals, and Yidan presented a poster on developing fluorescent copper and silver chalcogenides for SWIR imaging via surface control.
June 2023— Wishing Ke Wen all the best as she departs the Dennis Lab ahead of starting her PhD program in the fall. Glad we used the good weather and the lab social event as excuses to get an updated lab photo! Grateful for every member of this team!
June 2023— Prof. Dennis enjoyed her trip to Vancouver to give a Keynote talk at the Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition (CSC 2023).
June 2023— Welcome to Allana Souza Pereira, a visiting PhD student from Brazil!
May 2023— Congratulations to long-term Dennis Lab undergraduate researchers Artemis Margaronis and Perry Katsarakes, who graduated with their BS in Biomedical Engineering degrees from Boston University this month. We appreciate all your contributions to the lab over the years and know that you’ll both thrive in your PhD programs!
April 2023— Congratulations to Yidan and Xingjian on publication of their paper Minimizing near-infrared autofluorescence in preclinical imaging with diet and wavelength selection, published in the Journal of Biomedical Optics. This paper systematically and thoroughly demonstrates the way that we can reduce the impact of gut autofluorescence in mouse imaging by changing the diet or the excitation and emission wavelengths used for imaging. We were surprised to see autofluorescence from alfalfa-based standard chow at wavelengths as long as 1100 nm, but longer excitation wavelengths (e.g., 808 vs 670 nm) helped reduce autofluorescence, and essentially no autofluorescence was visible at wavelengths > 1250 nm regardless of what diet or excitation wavelength was used. This information will help us and others design their whole mouse imaging experiments effectively.
February 2023— Welcome to recent NU ChemE graduate Ke Wen, who is joining the lab for a post-bac research stint.
January 2023— Dennis Lab at SPIE Photonics West! Great presentation, Xingjian!
January 2023— Welcome to Warisha Tahir and Mallory Moffett, who are joining the Dennis Lab for their PhD studies.
October 2022— Prof. Dennis gave an invited talk at the SHIFT: Spectral Shaping for biomedical and energy applications conference in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. Thank you to the organizers for a great conference!
August 2022— Welcome to new postdoctoral researcher Yidan Sun, joining us from Nanjing University.
July 2022— Prof. Dennis gave an invited talk at the Gordon Research Conference on Colloidal Semiconductor Nanocrystals in Les Diablerets, Switzerland. Very interesting conference with great discussions!
July 2022— Prof. Allison Dennis officially joins the Chemical Engineering Department at Northeastern University— happy to be here!!