Professor Vali Raicu
Professor Valerica “Vali” Raicu, PI of the Raicu Research Group, holds his PhD from the University of Bucharest and completed his postdoctoral work at the Kochi Medical School and University of Toronto. Professor Raicu joined UWM’s Department of Physics in 2004 and was the Chair of the department from 2012 to 2015. In addition, he is an Adjunct Professor in UWM’s Department of Biological Sciences and Director of the UWM-Small Businesses Collaboratory. Together with members of his research group, Professor Raicu has designed, built and tested a two-photon microscope with spectral resolution and single-molecule-level sensitivity (OptiMiS), a patented technology licensed to Aurora Spectral Technologies. Using this technology, the Raicu lab has developed a novel theoretical framework for analysis of FRET signals from living cells,and molecular methods for tagging proteins of interest with variants of the green fluorescent protein (GFP), and, together with collaborators around the world, determined the association stoichiometry and quaternary structure of several membrane receptors and transporters in living cells, including G protein-couple receptors.
Gabriel “Gabby” Biener, Postdoctoral Researcher
Gabriel (Gabby) Biener received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering – Optics from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel. He has held postdoctoral positions at the CREOL – School of Optics at the University of Central Florida in Orlando and University of California – Los Angeles before joining the Raicu Research Group in 2011. Throughout his career he has conducted interdisciplinary studies combining optics he developed with the study of biological samples. Since his arrival at UWM in 2011, he has helped develop the two-photon microscope with spectral resolution system and improve its performance to the level of single-molecule sensitivity. Dr. Biener currently holds an Associate Scientist position with Prof. Raicu’s research group.
Mike Stoneman, Postdoctoral Researcher
Mike Stoneman holds an undergraduate degree in Physics from UW-Stevens Point and a Ph.D. in Physics from UWM. Mike has been deeply involved in the development of the Optical Micro-Spectroscopy System (OptiMiS) developed by the Raicu Research Group and commercially licensed to Aurora Spectral Technologies. Mike’s hands-on experience provides him the specialized skill set to recognize the essential improvements needed to advance spectrally resolved microscopy to the next level.
Joel Paprocki, Graduate Student
Joel Paprocki originally joined the Raicu Group in 2012 as an undergraduate researcher. After obtaining his undergraduate and master’s degrees in physics, Joel began his unique multidisciplinary doctoral program in 2015. Joel’s program is titled “Quantitative Molecular and Cellular Biophysics,” which encapsulates work from physics, biology, chemistry, and mathematics. Joel focuses on further development of FRET theory through experimental methods aimed towards understanding molecular interactions. The molecular interactions studied in his work concentrate on G protein-coupled receptors, with a prototypical yeast pheromone receptor, Ste2. The skills involved in his work range over a variety of biological, biochemical, optical, and physics-based techniques, and his work truly crosses from experimental to theoretical, which is why his program is suited so well for this type of work.
Dhruba Adhikari, Graduate Student
Dhruba Adhikari joined the Research Group in 2016. He is a graduate student pursuing his Ph.D. in physics, with a focus on molecular interactions under controlled test-tube conditions and in living cells.
Dammar Badu, Graduate Student
Dammar Nath Badu joined the Raicu Research Group in 2016. He is currently a graduate student pursuing his Ph. D. in Physics. He is currently working on “Quantifying the proportion of oligomeric states of the human secretin receptor using FRET Spectrometry”.
