Biography:

Remy Avila is a senior researcher at the Center for Applied Physics and Advanced Technology (CFATA) at the Juriquilla UNAM Campus. He obtained his degree in physics in at UNAM in 1993 and his PhD at the University of Nice, France in 1998. In 1999 he returned to UNAM as a researcher, first at the Center for Radioastronomy and Astrophysics, UNAM Campus Morelia, before joining CFATA in 2010.

He has conducted longlasting visits and collaborations at a number of leading research institutions like ICFO, Max Plank Institute for Astronomy, the University of Hawaii, to cite but a few. He has served as coordinator of the Bachelor of Technology at UNAM and currently coordinates the postgraduate studies at CFATA. Remy Avila specializes is applied optics. One of his main research areas is the application of infrared optical tweezers in cellular biology. Dr. Remy Avila has received important awards such as the National University Distinction for Young Scholars and the Allen Award from the American Optical Society.

Lecture: "Optical Tweezers"

Abstract: Trapping mater with light may sound like science fiction. Arthur Ashkin discovered in the late 70 ́s that this was possible in a microscopic scale, explained the basic physics behind that amazing phenomenon and then applied it to biological samples. Since then, optical tweezers have been continuously evolving to become a powerful tool for not only manipulating particles or cells in the micro and nano scales, but also and more importantly to measure forces at those scales with magnitudes that range from one to several hundreds of picoNewtons.

In this lecture I will present the basic physical concepts underlying the manipulation and force measurements that can be performed with optical tweezers and I will give key examples of their use in the field of cellular biology.