The Visual Genetics (VISGEN) consortium brings together eight academic and five commercial scientifically leading teams to address the unique challenge of visualizing nuclear processes in intact brain in real-time. By exchanging knowledge between academic and commercial sectors in Europe, as well as undertaking training secondments at leading Universities in China the team will grow its European and global competitiveness in a world-leading forefront of neuroscience and genetic technology. Visualisation of transcription in living systems has not been witnessed directly, this multidisciplinary and international project will herald a new era where this idea becomes a regular research tool and translates to a clinical and diagnostic technology in the future. The team will use a unique biotagging platform to develop the technology that is required to interrogate transcription. The intersectoral effort requires the amalgamation of knowledge from neuroscientists, synthetic chemists, engineers, physicists, analytical chemists, nanobiologists, behavioural scientists, laser technology and image processing experts. The consortium combines expertise from thirteen organisations from seven countries to build the multidisciplinary team and share the knowledge that addresses and will overcome the task of realising real-time and spatially resolved genetic studies. Once developed, the technology can be utilized for other medical-based research and development projects aimed at early stage disease diagnosis, cancer detection, and toxicity studies. Real-time visual genetics will transform our understanding of the state-of-the-art and herald transformative changes in the field of neuroscience, and in general life science.

There is an absence of lasers with the necessary wavelengths and characteristics to access the possibilities for deeper high-resolution biological tissue imaging in the third bio-window between 1650 nm and 1870 nm. Motivated by recent breakthrough results in multi-photon imaging at twice the depths currently achievable, we will meet the urgent need for new sources to address the outstanding research questions in this spectral region. Results will guide and enable instrument development in this appealing and relatively unexplored biophotonics imaging wavelength range. The AMPLITUDE consortium proposes a new concept of label-free, multi-modal microscopy and endoscopic imaging operating in this new wavelength region with multiple imaging and spectroscopic technologies, including NIR confocal reflectance microscopy, multi-photon microscopy and spontaneous Raman spectroscopy. By progressing ultrafast fibre laser developments at 1700 nm, we will deliver new imaging capabilities in an appropriate form factor and at cost suitable for widespread adoption. This will be further enhanced by providing additional output at 850 nm using second harmonic generation from one integrated laser device. This will enable a pioneering new compact and efficient multi-modal capability combining confocal and non-linear imaging techniques, overcoming performance limitations in medical and biological imaging applications, including improved pathohistological staging of tumours and in-vivo endoscopic assessment of depth of lesion invasiveness. Deeper multi-photon microscopy with autofluorescence imaging of cellular metabolic conditions, whose aspects are tightly related to cellular functioning and to cancer, implemented in tandem with Raman spectroscopy will provide exhaustive characterisation of the examined tissue at morphological, metabolic and molecular levels, allowing in-vivo optical biopsy for bladder cancer diagnosis, grading and staging.