Biography
I was born in Bratislava, then Czechoslovakia and grew up in Germany. I read Chemistry at St Hugh’s College Oxford until 2002, did a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley with Rich Mathies in ultrafast spectroscopy and worked at ETH Zurich with Vahid Sandoghdar on nano-optics. After returning to Oxford in 2010, I was elected to a tutorial fellowship at Exeter College in 2011 and promoted to Full Professor in 2016. Recent awards include the Medal for Light Microscopy by the Royal Microscopical Society (2021), The Sosei Heptares Prize and Emil Thomas Kaiser Award (2022) and the Royal Society Clifford Paterson Medal and Lecture (2026). I was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2025. I have been supported by ERC and UKRI funding, as well as a Wellcome Discovery grant and a Faraday Fellowship of the Royal Society. In 2018, I founded Refeyn Ltd, where I am a non-executive director.
Research
We develop new optical methods with applications in biophysical chemistry, molecular biophysics and across the broader life sciences. Currently, we focus on mass photometry, light-scattering-based detection, imaging and mass measurement of single biomolecules in solution. Our goal is to transform our ability to monitor and quantify biomolecular processes – ultimately delivering technologies that enable us to directly observe biomolecules in action. We foster a strongly collaborative approach to research, and are based in the Kavli centre for nanoscale discovery, a highly interdisciplinary environment across departments, disciplines and divisions. Work in our group falls in two major categories: 1. Development of novel optical hardware and analysis approaches to enable new measurement modalities. 2. Application of our methodologies with a focus on mechanistic investigations of biomolecular interactions and assembly.
Teaching
At Exeter I teach all aspects of Physical Chemistry throughout the entire undergraduate degree.
Selected Publications
- Young G, Hundt N, Cole D, Fineberg A, Andrecka J, Tyler A, Olerinyova A, Ansari A, Marklund EG, Collier MP, Chandler SA, Tkachenko O, Allen J, Crispin M, Billington N, Takagi Y, Sellers JR, Eichmann C, Selenko P, Frey L, Riek R, Galpin MR, Struwe WB, Benesch JLP, Kukura P. Quantitative mass imaging of single biological macromolecules. Science 2018
- Foley EDB, Kushwah MSK, Young G, Kukura P. Mass photometry enables label-free tracking and mass measurement of single proteins on lipid bilayers. Nature Methods 2021
- Asor R, Loewenthal D, Melnyk D, Tan TK and Kukura,P. Molecular-level observation of the self-assembly of a virus-like particle. Nature 2026