Jerome Wenger NanoBioPhotonics

Next conference “Optique Grenoble 2007” (02-05 July)

Plenary talk PL4 by Hervé Rigneault  : “Structures nanophotoniques pour étudier l'organisation sub-longueur d'onde des biomembranes” 

Poster P36 by Davy Gérard : “Exaltation de l’émission de fluorescence dans des nanoouvertures percées dans des films d’or”

Poster P66 by Jérome Wenger : “Quantification de l’altération de la photocinétique moléculaire induite par une nano-ouverture individuelle”

So it didn’t take long to the newly elected French government to threaten (again) the CNRS. Now, the transfer of CNRS researchers to universities appears intended, giving a large power to universities deans, and totally weaking the CNRS institution. This will definitely not solve the university problem in ! French universities need an ambitious reform, but absorbing new researchers will not improve anything. More likely, it may even decrease the average quality of French research.

Universities need students, and students need a clear view of professional openings at the end of their studies. We will not solve today’s major university problem if we don’t improve the companies’ will to hire qualified university students. Bringing new researchers will only delay things. 

More info at : http://www.sncs.fr/

Get up the petition : http://www.sncs.fr/phpPetitions/index.php?petition=2

Now back from the third international conference in surface plasmon photonics in Dijon () last week. A very nice thing is that the abstract book is freely available on the net at http://www.plasmonanodevices.org/spp3/index.html and reports at a glance the different hot plasmonic topics. Unfortunately, too many conferences tend to sell these abstract books (which is our work and intellectual property!). So I really encourage anyone interested in this field to have a look on this book.

As a feedback, here are some stats about the number of sessions per topic, and the number of invited speakers per country.

When wine tasting meets plasmonics…

Mr S., the newly elected French president, publicly affirms that paedophilia and suicide are genetically determined.

A positive point is that we no more feel ashamed for our president’s irrelevant opinions.

Nevertheless, the next five years are going to be tough.

From Nature vol. 446, p 854 (19^th April 2007) :