UCL-CNT Early Career Investigator Award in Neuroimaging Techniques 2017 presented to Dr. Thomas Blacker

om has been a most exceptional student and colleague, and his work has had a major impact in his field. As a Physicist who came to our labs through the CoMPLEX PhD programme and then stayed as a post doc with BBSRC funding, he has worked at the interface between fundamental cell biology and biophysics, developing a remarkable understanding of cell metabolism. His major breakthrough has been to identify the underlying biochemical mechanisms that define changes in the fluorescence lifetime signal generated by NADH and NADPH in response to pulsatile excitation –  as opposed to more familiar, classical intensity measurements. Many groups have previously measured fluorescence lifetimes of the combined NADH/NADPH signals (I’ll refer to as NAD(P)H), but the data have been descriptive rather than analytical.

Tom carried out a series of highly systematic experiments using multiphoton confocal microscopy and fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) that revealed that lifetime measurements enable us to differentiate between changes in NADPH and NADH, important metabolic intermediates that play very different roles in cell biology. Fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy achieved a high spatial resolution of the lifetime signal that revealed hitherto unknown differences in metabolic state between different cell types in complex multicellular preparations and between intracellular compartments at the level of the single cell.

Tom has applied this approach to a number of important biological questions, developing a mathematical model to maximise the information content of these measurements. His contributions have been crucial in clarifying the roles of distinct metabolic pathways in several major biological systems, in early development, in cardiac reperfusion injury, in stem cell biology and in cancer. In a short time, he has positioned himself at the forefront of this field, attested by invitations to speak at the premier meetings dealing with these approaches. Tom in a highly original, creative and productive scientist making major contributions at this interface between biology and physics, and this award is a very well deserved and timely recognition of his excellence.