An international team of experts led by McMaster Engineering researcher Niko Hildebrandt has been awarded a 2026 Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) Research Grant to detect molecular signals in plants at levels never before measurable.
The HFSP grant, which provides $550,000 annually in research funding for three years, will enable the team to establish an experimental proof of concept for using a process called Photon Avalanche FRET for biosensing and bioimaging — something that has, until now, only been theoretically predicted.
Hildebrandt, an expert in Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) biosensing, has teamed up with photon avalanche expert Artur Bednarkiewicz from the Polish Academy of Science in Wroclaw and Wolf Frommer, an expert in plant physiology from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf in Germany, to observe biological processes at extremely low concentrations in living systems.
Photon avalanching is a non-linear optical process in which a tiny disturbance, sometimes as small as a single particle of light, can trigger a chain reaction that produces a strong burst of light that makes it possible to detect extremely small changes and signals that would otherwise be too faint to measure.
And that disturbance is precisely where Hildebrandt’s expertise factors into the equation. These tiny disturbances can be introduced via FRET and interaction with biologically relevant molecules.
Given that this process is still theoretical in nature, explains Hildebrandt, the team will begin by establishing an experiment that will help translate a theoretical idea into a working experimental system.
If the experiment proves successful, the team will apply the technology to biosensing, with an initial focus on ultrasensitive sugar sensing in living plants, allowing them to measure metabolite changes in plants at concentrations so low that we are currently unable to measure them.
And if that works, explains Hildebrandt, the technology may open the doors to many other undetectable biological and chemical molecules and interactions beyond plant physiology, such as the detection of ultra-low concentrations of biomarkers in clinical diagnostics or pollutants in the environment.
The Human Frontier Science Program is known for supporting international research collaborations that bring together scientists across disciplines and borders to address complex biological questions.
“This HFSP research grant will allow us to work on an extremely interesting and new idea in close collaboration with great international partners,” says Hildebrandt.
“The grants are very competitive and focus on novel and interdisciplinary approaches that involve scientific exchanges across national and disciplinary boundaries.”
The program’s emphasis on fundamental science is a key part of its impact — and why Hildebrandt is so keen to get started.
“The grant funds basic research, which is extremely valuable,” he explains.
“Without basic scientific knowledge we will not be able to develop meaningful technologies and translate them into useful applications.”