Ben Miller
- Dr
- University College London
Following my undergraduate and masters at Cambridge (2013), I joined Rachel McKendry’s group at the London Centre for Nanotechnology, University College London, working on improving the sensitivity of nanoparticle-based diagnostics. After spending time at UCLA (2016) working on plasmonic nanoparticle detection, I moved towards quantum sensing with nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond. In particular, I developed diagnostics using nanodiamonds to label proteins/DNA. Applying green and resonant microwave photons to control the spin state and therefore fluorescence emission allowed frequency-domain separation from noise, improving sensitivity to achieve single-molecule detection of HIV RNA with a short isothermal amplification step.
Finishing my PhD in 2019, I continued this work as a postdoc, before being awarded a Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship in 2022, splitting my time between the Wyss Institute at Harvard University and the Department of Biochemical Engineering at UCL. I am investigating the effects of proximal magnetic nanoparticles on NV centre spin properties, with biophysics and diagnostic applications, as well as CRISPR-based biosensing. Alongside this, I work on materials characterisation, optics and developing instrumentation.
I was appointed to a Proleptic Lectureship in the Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering at UCL in 2024, where I am establishing my research group.
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