The Nhu Phan Research Group

The Phan group is located at the university of Gothenburg, department of chemistry and molecular biology. The research within the Phan group is focused on the development and applications of mass spectrometry imaging (ToF-SIMS, NanoSIMS, MALDI), fluoresence microscopy and super-resolution stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy, electron microscopy, and recently the correlative nanoscale imaging using combinations of these modalities to understand the structural and functional relationship of biomolecules in neural stem cells, neuronal cells and in the brain.

The developed technologies have been applied to the following biological questions:
• Organization of structural lipids at synaptic membrane, and its relation to neuronal activity.
• Targeted molecular imaging of the brain, structural and functional relation in brain activity.
• Molecular turnover in neuronal cells and brain, and correlation to neuro-degeneration.
• Molecular turnover, dynamics and regulation in neural stem cells.
• Stress granule pathway and molecular transition in neuronal cells.

We discovered an important relationship between the brain lipid organization and brain function modulated by exogenous factors (Phan, Anal. Chem. 2014), and between the lipid organization at neuronal membrane and the neuronal activity (Agüi-Gonzalez, ACS Chem.Neurosci. 2021). We further investigated the drug effects on structures and function of the brain and nerve cells (Philipsen, ACS Chem. Neurosci.2018, 2020). We measured the chemical distribution within single vesicles (Thomen, ACS Nano 2020; Rabasco, Int. J. Mol.Sci. 2022).

In another perspective, we have a strong interest in the development of novel labeling probes facilitating the correlative imaging. The probes contain elements that are visible in all the modalities, including SIMS, fluorescence microscopy, and electron microscopy, enabling multiplex targeted molecular imaging at micro- and nanoscale resolution.

We have developed dual labeling probes for protein imaging with SIMS and fluorescence microscopy (Kabatas, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2019, J. Analyt. Atomic. Spec. 2019), and gold nanoprobes for SIMS and electron microscopy (Agüi-Gonzalez, Nanomaterials 2021). We have developed a correlative imaging method with NanoSIMS, fluorescence microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy to image cellular structure, location of specific proteins, and cellular compositions (Lange, PLOS ONE 2021), and a platform for correlative live imaging and analysis with confocal microscopy and amperometry to study the dynamics of individual secretary events of transmitter vesicles (Zheng, ACS Meas. Sci. Au 2021).