In atoms, molecules or biological systems, all structural changes will modify the properties of the entity (form, colour, capacity to react with other entities etc ...). These changes are due to electronic and nuclear dynamics known as charge migrations (rearrangement of electrons and/or protons within the entity). However charge migrations are very fast and can occurs within 1/1000 000 000 000 000 second meaning from few attosecond (1e-18 sec) to few femtosecond (1e-15 sec). As an example in the Rutherford model of the hydrogen atom, known as the "planetary" model, an electron is moving around a proton (first orbital). The duration the electron takes to complete period around the proton is 150 asec. What is particularly exciting is to be able to make "a movie" of this ultra-fast dynamic that no existing device is capable to follow. My interests are actually not only to observe the first instants of these structural changes but also to control them to go deeper in the understanding of how chemical reactions or biological phenomena take place. If such attosecond information is achieved it will be possible to approach very high-speed information transfer and why not studying how information can be artificially encoded (molecular electronics) or present (traces of cancers) in biological sample, a kind of bio computing?This research will give birth to a new type of Physics that will bridge the gap between many sciences. The technical challenges under this research area are leading international efforts in laser development that will have a huge impact on technological applications also in industry (electronic, communication), medicine technologies (Magnetic Resonance Imaging, proton therapy, pharmacology).Therefore I developed a research based on tools to observe and control the intra- atomic and intra-molecular electrons and nuclei motions. To capture this dynamics at the origin of any chemical or biological reactions, one has to capture snapshots of the system evolving, exactly as a camera will do. Unfortunately there is no such detector, but what is possible is to find a process observable, that can be affected by these changes and so that will carry the fingerprint of these changes. The ideal candidate for this is light, because emission of photons is highly sensitive to any changes, it is a fast process and it can be observable by looking at spectra (frequency equivalent to its colour). The process I choose is high-order harmonic generation (HHG) that occurs within 10's attosec to few fsec (appropriate time window). It occurs while an intense and short laser pulse interacts with an atom or a molecule. During this interaction, an electron is ionised (extract from the core), and follow a certain trajectory before coming back to the core where it can be recaptured, exactly as a returning boomerang. The excess kinetic energy the electron has acquired during its travel will be spent by the system (final atom or molecule) emitting a new photon which frequency (colour) will be an odd harmonic of the fundamental photon (the laser photon). These harmonic photons can be measured accurately so if a change in the core occurs during the electron travel, the characteristic of the photons emitted will be modified. I have been working in the study of high order harmonic and in particular in the understanding of electron trajectories during the process. I demonstrated experimentally that the ionised electron can not only follow one trajectory but many, giving rise to my technique of investigation called Quantum-Path Interferences first demonstrated in atoms. I will use this technique under different conditions to extract the information on charge migration in molecules within the attosecond timescale.

The march of technological progress has given us devices that are ever smaller and more complex: today's smart phones for example are almost unrecognizable in their size and their range of functions from the models of 25 years ago. This progress has taken us to the point where devices must now be understood in terms of the quantum behaviour of their constituent particles, a new frontier in technology that furthermore will lead to completely new applications. However, building fully quantum mechanical models of devices is notoriously difficult: the amount of information needed to describe a quantum system scales exponentially with its size. The situation is even worse when one must consider how the environment interacts with the device, and yet this is a crucial consideration for real devices. However, we have recently developed a new quantum simulation technique with remarkable efficiency: by keeping just the most important information we are able to track the behaviour of a single particle even when it is interacting very strongly with all of the other particles in its environment. In this project, we will exploit this new technique to design, simulate, and optimize four types of nanoscale devices with various technological applications. The functioning of all these devices relies on similar physics, namely how the device interacts with the environment. As such, our new method is ideally suited to all these areas. First, we will model solid state single photon sources. These produce quanta of light - photons - one at a time, and underpin future ideas for secure communication and quantum computing. We will find how the coupling between the photons and the vibrations of the solid determines affects their performance. Understanding this will allow us to determine how devices, either machined as thin wires or membranes or drawn as nanometre patterns in a solid matrix, could create more effective photon sources. Second, solar panels need to first absorb light energy from the sun, and then to transport it to electrodes. We will investigate the quantum mechanics of this energy transport problem, in particular for solar cells made of organic materials. Here, vibrations are very strongly coupled to the excited electrons that transport the energy, and our new technique is ideal for studying how this process works and how it might be improved by informed selection of component organic molecules. Third, a new frontier in electronics will be enabled if we can build circuits using molecules. Electric current is then a consequence of how electrons can tunnel quantum mechanically from one molecule to the next; this depends both on electronic coupling between molecules and how the molecules vibrate. We will use our technique to build models of molecular junctions, and explore how strong electronic and vibrational coupling changes the quantum transport properties of these materials. Fourth, diamonds have recently been at the forefront of a whole new kind of imaging technology. In particular, single electrons in diamond have a tiny magnetic moment, a 'spin', whose motion depends on how strong the magnetic field is at the position of the electron. Remarkably, the spin of a single electron can be measured in diamond, and so magnetic imaging with nanometre accuracy is a possibility. The limit of how well these 'nano-magnetometers' can work is set by how well they can be isolated from their environment. In this project, we will first use our novel approach to understand the dynamics of a spin coupled to its environment, and then show how to isolate spins more effectively. The project will advance several different nanotechnologies, and at the same time we will develop a unique and freely available tool that can be applied to a huge variety of new systems in future.

Partial differential equations (PDEs) are at the heart of many scientific advances. The behaviour of every material object in nature, with time scales ranging from picoseconds to millennia and length scales ranging from sub-atomic to astronomical, can be modelled by deterministic and stochastic PDEs or by equations with similar features. The role of PDEs within mathematics (especially nonlinear analysis, geometry, topology, stochastic analysis, numerical analysis, and applied mathematics) and in other sciences (such as physics, chemistry, life sciences, climate modelling/prediction, materials science, engineering, and finance) is fundamental and is becoming increasingly significant. PDEs have consequently become one of the largest and most diverse research fields of present-day mathematics. There is a serious shortage of UK researchers and specialists in the Analysis of PDEs and related areas of Core Mathematics and its Interfaces, both in academia and industry, particularly compared to other G8 nations. More generally, several EPSRC reports and the 2010 International Review of UK Mathematics have drawn attention to the under-representation of analysis in the UK, compared to the rest of the world. It is therefore important that resources are invested in this area to remedy this deficiency. The central aim of the new Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) is to produce cohorts of highly trained, outstanding mathematicians with deep expertise and interdisciplinary skills in the analysis/applications of PDEs and related areas of Core Mathematics and its Interfaces. A sizeable yearly cohort will allow the CDT to create new training mechanisms so that the students will learn theory, analysis, and applications in a variety of fields in a coherent manner with a natural progression, by-passing a traditionally separate `pure' or `applied' approach to learning. The training will be fundamentally connected to all aspects of PDEs and their analysis/applications which, because of the prevalence of PDEs in science and engineering, impinge on a majority of the EPSRC CDT call priority areas. Oxford is well placed to play a leading role, building on UK strengths in PDEs and their analysis/applications. The Oxford Centre for Nonlinear PDE (OxPDE) was created in 2007, jointly by EPSRC under a major Science & Innovation Award and the University of Oxford by significant matching funding. OxPDE has attracted a number of outstanding researchers in PDEs and Analysis, forming the largest research group that there has ever been in PDEs in the UK. The proposed CDT is based on this core group, along with a multidisciplinary cluster of high quality researchers with PDEs as a core connection spread across the Mathematical Institute and the Departments of Physics, Computer Science, Statistics, and Engineering Science within Oxford. The supervisors in our team have extensive experience of providing a high-quality research training environment for supporting doctoral level education/research. The University of Oxford is committed to the formation of the new CDT and will provide a significant contribution, in particular funding up to 3 students per year. One of the key partners, BNP Paribas, will undertake to fund 2 DPhil students commencing in 2014/15 and sponsor 2-6 internships per year for the CDT students. The CDT will have an international dimension with Partners from leading academic and research institutions in the US, China, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Russia, and Switzerland; these partners have offered a variety of support for our CDT including attendance at their courses and funded visits by our students who will be equipped with a different research/education culture and will gain additional expertise which is absent in the UK.

The goal of ACRoBEAR is to predict and understand health risks from wildfire air pollution and natural-focal disease at high latitudes, under rapid Arctic climate change, and resilience and adaptability of communities across the region to these risks. This will be achieved through integrating satellite and in-situ observations, modelling, health data and knowledge, and community knowledge and stakeholder dialogue.The Arctic has warmed rapidly over recent decades, at around twice the rate of global mean temperature increases, resulting in rapid changes to the high latitude Earth system. Changes in the high latitude terrestrial environment include observed increases in temperature extremes and precipitation patterns, which are leading to increasing trends in boreal wildfire and changes in the distribution of disease-carrying vectors, with evidence for emerging interactions between these changing risks. Recent years (including 2019) have seen unprecedented fire activity at Arctic latitudes, leading to unhealthy air quality in high latitude towns and cities. Vector-borne disease occurrence in these regions is also changing in response to rapid changes in temperature and moisture. Moreover, fire activity is intrinsically linked to changes in vector-borne disease risk through changing the habitat conditions for vectors and their hosts. Environmental, social, and governance factors specific to high latitudes hamper our current ability to understand community resilience and response to these changing risks. ACRoBEAR will tackle these urgent issues in the most rapidly warming region of the planet. To address these research challenges, ACRoBEAR brings together a diverse, international, interdisciplinary team of world-leading research groups and collaborators. The project will benefit from two-way dialogue with community groups and stakeholders throughout, across three key regions (Alaska, Eastern Siberia, Sweden). These groups will take an active part in co-design of specific research deliverables, and contribute local and indigenous knowledge to the development of new understanding within the project. ACRoBEAR aims to connect natural science with local community and stakeholder priorities, and to integrate natural science with local community knowledge and understanding. The ACRoBEAR team comprises world-leading experts in air pollution, climate science, natural-focal disease, social science and governance, landscape fire science, and health science, from across four European countries, Russia, and the United States. The unique interdisciplinary team will allow an end-to-end state-of-the art assessment of community resilience to changes in risk due to wildfire and natural-focal disease at high latitudes as a result of rapid Arctic warming. The planned workflow exploits cross-disciplinary collaboration and knowledge transfer to deliver integrated outcomes. ACRoBEAR will benefit a broad range of local and national-level stakeholders, including local communities, government, health and forestry agencies, and local and national policy makers. ACRoBEAR will deliver substantial impact on local communities, policy makers and health agencies in Arctic nations. Impact will result from providing new understanding to enable implementation of robust measures for mitigating harmful health impacts due to changes in high latitude wildfire and natural-focal disease and development of policy options to enable adaptation and increase resilience, tailored to regional communities and governance structures. The key legacy impact will be a series of web-based data tools and resources, carefully tailored to community and stakeholder needs via continual two-way dialogue throughout the project.

Myotonic Dystrophy is the leading cause of muscular dystrophy in adults (1:8000). It is caused by a repeat expansion (mutation) in a gene called DMPK and results in severe muscle and heart disease, with significantly shortened life span. There is no treatment. We have developed new antisense compounds conjugated to short fragments of proteins able to deliver the therapy efficiently into muscle tissue, and we have shown the ability of these compounds to reverse the deterioration caused by DM1 in mouse models and in muscle cells derived from patients. We will now focus on completing the preclinical development of our lead compound with the safest toxicology profile. The recent approval of the oligonucleotide drug Nusinersen by the FDA and EMA for treatment of spinal muscular atrophy marks the start of a major revolution in the treatment of genetic diseases. Nusinersen has major clinical impact and keeps patients alive who would otherwise have died. There is now urgent need to address similar diseases which are currently untreated like DM1. Although these kinds of therapies have worked in vitro for several years the major challenge to successfully complete the clinical development an antisense compound is to being able to deliver the drug to the tissues in animals and patients. Our solution does exactly that, we have developed a novel platform technology based on short cell penetrating peptides (fragments of proteins), which when attached to the antisense molecule provide highly effective penetration into cells and into tissues such heart and diaphragm, difficult to reach for large drugs like antisense compounds. This is critical for effective therapy since life span in DM1 is reduced primarily due to respiratory insufficiency and cardiac failure. The final goal of this 20-month programme is to identify a drug suitable for testing in non-human primates.