Lighting Research Group

Sukurta: 11 lapkričio 2023

Keywords: biophotonic technologies; antibacterial photoinactivation; natural photosensitizers;

Vilnius University aims to establish itself as a region-al hub of expertise for space-related R&D at certain fields of interest through collaboration between academia and industry.

Research group activities

Optimization and application of LEDs and their systems for general and niche applications.
Biophotonic light applications, such as green-house lighting, medical lighting, and for the con-trol of bacteria biofilms and microfungi.
Development and research of novel and safe antimicrobial strategies against resilient microbial forms: biofilms, spores.
Antimicrobial strategies that are being researched and developed: antimicrobial photoinactivation, antibacterial ribosomally synthesized peptides
(bacteriocins), biofilm quorum-quenching (QQ) enzymes and other QQ compounds.

Proposal

Looking for industrial and/or acedemical partners with space-related experience for collaboration in interdisciplinary fields of life sciences, biophysics, op-toelectronics, wide-bangap semiconductors etc.

Meet our team

Prof. dr. Pranciškus Vitta Doc. dr. Alisa Gricajeva Dr. Irina Buchovec

Research outcomes

Inactivation of Gram (−) bacteria Salmonella en-terica by chlorophyllin-based photosensitization: Mechanism of action and new strategies to en-hance the inactivation efficiency, I. Buchovec, V. Lukseviciūtė, R. Kokstaite, D. Labeikyte, L. Kaziuko-nyte, J. Photochem Photobiol. B. 172, 1-10, 2017.
Antimicrobial Photoinactivation Approach Based on Natural Agents for Control of Bacteria Biofilms in Spacecraft, I. Buchovec, A. Gricajeva, L. Kalėdienė and P. Vitta, Int. J. Mol. Sci. 21, art.no. 6932, 2020.
Riboflavin- and chlorophyllin-based antimicrobi-al photoinactivation of Brevundimonas sp. ESA1 biofilms, A. Gricajeva, I. Buchovec, L. Kalėdienė, K. Badokas, P. Vitta, Front Cell Infect Microbiol. Sep 21;12:1006723, 2022.
Investigation of amino acids related to Staphylo-coccus saprophyticus AG1 EstAG1 carboxylesterase catalytic function revealed a new family of bacterial lipolytic enzymes, A. Gricajeva, L. Kalėdienė. Int J Biol Macromol. 235:123791, 2023.

Resources

Light source characterization system with integrat-ing sphere, spectrometer, power supply and tem-perature control; CamScan Apollo 300 elektronic microscope/Scanning electron microscope (SEM) HITACHI SU8230; Optical fluorescence microscope Olympus BX51; UV-VIS-NIR spectrometer Perkin Elmer Lambda 950; Raman spectroscopy and more.