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WelWelcome to the Wei Research Group! 

We are a team of passionate researchers with interdisciplinary backgrounds in optical microscopy, physical chemistry, and chemical biology! We develop next-generation optical imaging techniques based on nonlinear vibrational spectroscopy to visualize dynamic biological processes with better spatial, temporal, and molecular precision.

Latest News

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2024.09.28 
Congrats to Lu and RJ for receiving the CEMI pilot grant for an exciting collaborative project with the Karthikeyan and Mazmanian Labs at Caltech!

2024.09.23 
Check out our latest publication in Angewandte Chemie where we demonstrate high-throughput room-temperature IR imaging of single molecules using bond-selective fluorescence! Congrats to Haomin and co-authors for the awesome work!

2024.07.12 
Our lab hosted the chemistry summer social (ChemKeg) on July 12th for the CCE community! We hope you were able to join us for some fun! 

2024.06.17
We welcome Caltech undergraduate, Benjamin Yang '27, who will be working in our lab as the John Stauffer SURF Fellow this summer! Welcome, Ben!

2024.06.13 
Two wins for the Wei lab at the 2024 McCoy Award Symposium!
Congratulations to RJ for winning the 2024 James LuValle DEI Award presented by CCE and congratulations to Phil for winning the CCE Teaching Assistantship Award!


2024.05.06
Congratulations to Phil for passing his candidacy exam!

2024.04.17
Congratulations to RJ for being selected for the Merck Emerging Talent Symposium in Rahway, NJ!

2024.03.10
Congratulations to RJ for winning the Pittcon–ACS Analytical Chemistry Graduate Fellowship presented by the American Chemical Society Division of Analytical Chemistry!

2024.01.10
Congratulations to Xiaotian for winning the Barbara Burger Fellowship presented by the CCE department!

​2024.01.03
We are pleased to welcome post-doctoral scholar Ryan to the group!

​2023.11.13
Congratulations to Jiajun for his successful Ph.D. thesis defense. Jiajun was Lu's very first Ph.D. student. Fantastic defense, Dr. Du! 

​2023.10.08
Congratulations to Kwan for winning the Tomas B. Hirschfeld Scholar Award presented by Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACSS)!

​2023.09.13
Congratulations to Lu for winning the 2024 Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award presented by the Biophysical Society!

​2023.08.11
Congratulations to Adrian for passing his candidacy exam!

​2023.06.29
Check out our paper published in Nature Photonics and Caltech News covering this work! We built a new microscopy technique that allows us to visualize single molecules with vibrational contrast. Congrats to co-first authors Haomin and Kwan and other coauthors!

2023.06.18
Thanks to all the lab members and friends who joined us on our trip to Catalina Island! 

​2023.06.16
Congratulations to RJ for passing his candidacy exam!

​2023.06.09
Congratulations to Kun for his successful Ph.D. thesis defense. Kun was one of Lu's first Ph.D. students. We wish you the best of luck, Dr. Miao! 

2023.05.25
Check out our paper published in JPCB! We use theoretical modeling to gain insights on designing new Raman probes. Congratulations to Jiajun and our collaborators Xuecheng, and Tomislav! 

​2023.05.23
Congratulations to Phil for being selected as a Hertz Fellow

​2023.04.07
Congratulations to Adrian for receiving a NSF graduate research fellowship!

 
​2023.03.03
Congratulations to Lu for receiving the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Award! Thanks to the CZI dynamic imaging funding for supporting us in exploring some wild ideas!

​2023.02.24
Congratulations to Lu for receiving a NSF CAREER Award!

​2023.01.06

We are pleased to welcome first-years Ziguang, Noor, and Phil to the group!

​2022.09.01
Congratulations to Lu for being named a 2022 Vallee Scholar! Many Thanks to the Vallee Foundation for the support!

2022.08.01
Xiaotian joins the Biotechnology Leadership Program! Congrats to Xiaotian!
 

2022.07.15
Jiajun and Haomin's recent perspective in ACS Chemical Biology is featured as the ​Supplementary Cover!

2022.06.30
Check out our new perspective published in ACS Chemical Biology! We discuss recent development of SRS imaging with the coupling of emerging molecular tags for applications in metabolic analysis, microbiology investigations and super-multiplex imaging. We also share some of our thoughts for further improvements of molecular probes and potential opportunities of the platform in chemical biology. Congrats to Jiajun and co-authors!

2022.05.17
We published a JOVE manuscript, sharing the detailed protocol about our VISTA work! Congrats to Kun and the co-authors!

2022.05.04
Lu is awarded the 2022 Emerging Leader in Molecular Spectroscopy Award! Many thanks to the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACSS) for this honor! Lu will deliver a plenary talk this Oct. during the SciX conference!

2022.05.04
#maythefourth be with us! Check out our new work published today in JACS! We exploited the idea of varied kinetics of hydrogen-deuterium exchange on terminal alkynes for local chemical and cellular environmental sensing by Raman spectral-imaging! Congratulations to Xiaotian and Kun for this nice work!

2022.04.09
We are very excited to learn that our former summer undergraduate student, Emily Dunn, has been awarded the NSF GRFP! Emily will continue her graduate study here at Caltech. We wish her all the best for the next journey!

2022.03.20
We are pleased to welcome first-years Yulu, RJ, and Adrian to the group!

​2022.02.15
Congratulations to Lu for being named a 2022 Sloan Research Fellow! The full credits belong to the whole group! Many thanks to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for this huge honor!

2021.12.16
Check out our new work published in JACS! We developed multicolor photoactivatable Raman probes by cyclopropenone caging. This work is selected as the supplementary cover in JACS! Congratulations to Jiajun for this exciting achievement! 

​2021.12.04
If you are interested in learning both the fundamentals and the recent exciting research of stimulated Raman scattering microscopy, check out this newly published book! We contributed a chapter -- chapter: 20 Stimulated Raman Scattering with small vibrational probes. Thanks Haomin, Jiajun and Kwan for the work!

2021.11.02
Congratulations to Li-En for being awarded the Caltech J. Yang Family Fellowship! 

2021.10.01
Lu is appointed as the Heritage Medical Research Institute (HMRI) Investigator at Caltech!

2021.08.12
We survived our first kayaking trip to the LA river!

2021.08.10
Lu is selected as a Scialog fellow for Advancing BioImaging and is awarded a collaboration award!

2021.07.07
Congratulations to Xiaotian for passing candidacy!

2021.06.29
Li-En's Analyst paper has been selected as the cover story!

2021.06.24 
Check out C&EN highlighting our VISTA work!

2021.06.14 
We welcome Emily Dunn and Amy Vo to the group as summer research undergrads! Emily is an Amgen fellow and Amy is a named SURF fellow, John Stauffer SURF Fellow.

2021.06.04
Congratulations to Li-En for passing candidacy! Woo-hoo! 

2021.05.07
Congratulations to Chenxi, Kun, Li-En, and other co-authors for their accepted manuscript in Nature Communications! A new strategy for performing label-free imaging to within 100 nm resolution!

2021.04.07
Congratulations to Li-En, Kun, and Chenxi for their accepted manuscript in Analyst (link)!​ 

2021.04.01 
Wei lab receives the Shurl and Kay Curci Foundation grant! Thanks for the support! 

2021.03.19
Our recently accepted JCP paper was selected as a "Featured article". Congrats to Kwan, Chenxi, Haomin, and other co-authors! 

2020.10.08
One postdoc position available in the Wei group! Check here

2020.10.06
Lu receives the NIH Director's New Innovator Award. Congratulations Lu!

2020.09.29
We are pleased to welcome Haomin to the lab!

2020.09.25
Check out Caltech News highlighting Jiajun's recent work!

2020.09.09
Congratulations to Kwan, Jiajun, and other co-authors for their accepted manuscript in Analytical Chemistry!​

2020.08.14
Congratulations to Jiajun, Yapeng, and other co-authors for their accepted manuscript in Nature Communications!​

2020.03.03
Congratulations to Kun for his accepted manuscript in ACS Central Science!

2019.12.01
We are pleased to welcome first-year Chemistry graduate students Li-En and Xiaotian to the lab!
 
2019.11.07
Lu is awarded the Amgen’s Early Innovator Award! Thank you Amgen for supporting us!

2019.10.22
Congratulations to Dongkwan Lee for passing his candidacy exam! Our third Ph.D. candidate from the group!

2019.10.08
We are pleased to welcome undergraduate CS major Rona to the lab!

2019.07.12
We are pleased to welcome visiting undergraduate student Jia to the lab!

2019.06.19
Congratulations to Jiajun Du for passing his candidacy exam! Officially a Ph.D. candidate!

2019.06.11
Congratulations to Kun Miao for passing his candidacy exam! Officially a Ph.D. candidate!

2019.02.11
Congratulations to Dr. Chenxi Qian for being awarded the prestigious NSERC Postdoc Scholarships!

2018.10.20
Lu has been selected by the Research Corporation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation as a 2018 Scialog Fellow on Chemical Machinery of the Cell. Three days of very exciting discussion in Tucson!

2018.09.05
Lu is awarded the Blavatnik regional awards for young scientists! 
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