Bergholt Lab

Label-Free Bioimaging Laboratory

Pioneering transformative biophotonic technologies that reshape our understanding of disease and open new frontiers in clinical medicine, at King's College London.

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King's College London · Guy's and St Thomas Trust Hospital

We are an interdisciplinary research group based at King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas Trust Hospital, working at the frontier of biophotonics and its transformative applications in health and disease. We bridge the physical sciences and clinical medicine to build photonic tools with health impact.

News

April 2026: We are very excited to recieve funding from the Wellcome Thrust to advance multiscale multimodal & bioimaging of cancer tissues.
March 2026: We thank the European Research Council for awarding us the prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant. Keep an eye out for job posts!
January 2026: Congratulations to Vishal Kumar for being shortlisted for Stem for Britain 2026 to present to Parliament.
November 2025: Congratulations to Dr Magnus Jensen for being awarded EPSRC IAA and KCL IDA grants.
October 2025: Congratulations to Dr Jianrong Qiu for his publication in Analytical Chemistry on using fibre-optics to probe intra-cardiac fluorescence. (link)
July 2025: We are excited to be accepted into the Venture Builder programme at the London Institute for Healthcare Engineering (LIHE) to support our innovative photonic tools for early cancer diagnostics.
May 2025: Congratulations to Vishal Kumar for receiving the PGR Best Thesis Style Presentation Award.
May 2025: Congratulations to Jianrong Qiu for receiving the LIHE Accelerator Award.
January 2025: We are grateful to Cancer Research UK (CRUK) for supporting our project on in vivo fibre-optic multi-photon imaging.
January 2025: Our project LIP was awarded the London Institute of Healthcare Engineering (LIHE) Best Innovation Award.
November 2024: Congratulations to Dr Magnus Jensen who was awarded the Outstanding Thesis Prize of King's College London for his thesis entitled "Integrated Raman spectroscopy and mass spectrometry for heterospectral tissue imaging".
April 2024: Dr Bergholt gave a keynote talk at Spring SciX. 18 April 2024 • Glasgow, University of Strathclyde, UK
March 2024: Our team was awarded the MRC Impact Accelerator Award (IAA).

Published in leading journals

Int. J. Cancer

ACS Central Science

Gastroenterology

Nature Comms.

J. Biophotonics

Our Research

We develop innovative biomedical imaging instruments and methods to study light and tissue interactions, aiming to answer fundamental biological questions and address widespread diseases, with a particular focus on cancer. Our work sits at the intersection of microscopy, spectroscopy, spatial biology, advanced endoscopy, and artificial intelligence. We apply advanced imaging and spectroscopic techniques to both preclinical disease models and patient studies, providing new insights into disease onset and progression. Our biophotonics laboratories at Guy's Hospital are equipped with state-of-the-art label-free imaging platforms including multi-photon and fluorescence lifetime imaging, confocal and conventional Raman microscopy, fibre-optic Raman spectroscopy, hyperspectral imaging, DESI-mass spectrometry imaging, and endoscopic/laparoscopic imaging systems.

Our key research interests fall within three complementary themes:

Multidimensional Molecular Imaging

We develop innovative instruments and technologies for multimodal bioimaging at the molecular level. Label-free bioimaging harnesses direct interactions between excitation light and biological samples, including scattering, absorption, and fluorescence decay, to reveal biology without staining or labelling.

Our laboratory develops advanced correlative imaging approaches that combine multi-photon microscopy, fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM), confocal Raman spectroscopic imaging, and optical coherence tomography. We further integrate optical spectroscopy with DESI-mass spectrometry imaging and spatial transcriptomics for a comprehensive molecular view of biological systems.

Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Biophotonics

Artificial intelligence has transformed diverse fields, and we are harnessing its power for biophotonics. Label-free bioimaging provides powerful, non-invasive analysis of biological samples without exogenous contrast agents.

We develop advanced AI approaches tailored to label-free bioimaging, enabling enhanced imaging fidelity, accelerated analysis pipelines, and improved diagnostic capabilities. Our work spans deep learning for spectral unmixing, image reconstruction, and clinical decision support.

Clinical Translation & In Vivo Biophotonics

Early detection is decisive in reducing cancer-related mortality. We develop next-generation in vivo biophotonic systems capable of detecting, grading, and staging lesions at the earliest stages of disease.

Our approach integrates optical imaging, Raman spectroscopy, and optical coherence tomography (OCT) for comprehensive characterisation of early-stage cancer in patients. We work closely with clinical partners to translate these technologies into real-world healthcare settings, spanning arthroscopy, endoscopy, and intra-cardiac imaging.

Publications

Selected publications

View All Publications

Opto-Lipidomics of Tissues (Advanced Science)

M. Jensen, S. Liu, E. Stepula, D. Martella, A. A. Birjandi et al. & M. S. Bergholt

Introducing opto-lipidomics, which expands Raman spectroscopy to identify individual lipids in complex tissue matrices via correlation with DESI-mass spectrometry imaging.

Raman Needle Arthroscopy for Cartilage Assessment (J. Orthop. Res.)

K. R. Kroupa, M. I. Wu et al. & M. S. Bergholt

A novel arthroscopic Raman probe for in vivo molecular assessment of cartilage composition, structure, and material properties in health and disease.

High-Throughput Molecular Imaging via Deep-Learning-Enabled Raman Spectroscopy (Anal. Chem.)

C. C. Horgan, M. Jensen et al. M. M. Stevens & M. S. Bergholt

DeepeR: a comprehensive framework for higher-throughput molecular imaging trained on over 1.5 million Raman spectra (400 hours of acquisition).

Fibre Manufacturing Facility

King's College London

The Fibre Manufacturing Facility (FMF) hosted by our laboratory at King's College London is a dedicated environment for the design, prototyping, assembly, and testing of custom fibre-optic probes and photonic devices. We host a full suite of automated precision assembly tools, and 3D fabrication capabilities. We welcome collaborations with academic and industry partners.

Core Capabilities

Light Sources & Characterisation

Six laser lines spanning UV to NIR (337 to 785 nm)
Tunable 800 to 1100 nm system
Visible and NIR spectrometers
LED and broadband light sources

Prototyping & Fabrication

FDM and SLA resin 3D printing
Custom fibre mounts, jigs, and holders
Rapid iteration from concept to prototype

Automated Precision Assembly

Micrometre-resolution tools and motorised stages
Fibre cleaving, splicing, and polishing
End-face preparation and inspection
Polarisation analysis

Inspection & Testing

High-resolution fibre microscopy
Spectral characterisation
Probe benchmarking

Applications

Endoscopic Fibre Probes

Miniaturised Raman probes for real-time molecular tissue characterisation during endoscopy.

Intra-vascular Balloon Probe

Measurements within a balloon catheter for in vivo cardiac sensing.

Multimodal Fiber Probes

Combined probes delivering simultaneous multimodal imaging.

Custom Fibre Arrays

Fibre bundle arrays with controlled pitch and numerical aperture, from single fibres to densely packed 2D arrays.

Collaborate with the FMF

Interested in accessing the facility or partnering on photonic probe development? We work with academic and industry collaborators at all stages, from early concept through to clinical-grade assembly.

Get in Touch Visit FMF Website

Team

An interdisciplinary group of physicists, chemists, optical engineers, and biomedical scientists.

Mads S. Bergholt

Principal Investigator & Associate Professor (Reader) in Biophotonics

Mads is an Associate Professor (Reader) in Biophotonics at King's College London. He received his MSc in Optics from the University of Southern Denmark and his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the National University of Singapore, followed by a Marie Curie Fellowship at Imperial College London.

Postdoctoral Researchers

Shiyue Liu (Dora)

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Multimodal biomedical imaging, Raman and FTIR spectroscopy, and laser interactions with cells and tissue. PhD from The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Magnus Jensen

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Commercial exploration and translation of biophotonics technologies. Outstanding Thesis Prize, KCL 2024. PhD from King's College London.

PhD Students

Vishal Kumar

PhD Student

AI-enabled Raman spectroscopy for joint disease diagnosis. Shortlisted for Stem for Britain 2026. Integrated master's from IISER Mohali.

Marija Dimitrievska

PhD Student

Molecular characterisation of chronic wounds using Raman spectroscopy and DESI-MS. MSci Molecular Genetics, KCL.

Ji Chen

PhD Student

Raman spectroscopy for molecular assessment of alveolar bone following dental implantation. MSc in Regenerative Dentistry, KCL.

Fatima Al-Shemary

PhD Student

Widefield imaging modalities for twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. MSc in Genomic Medicine, KCL/St George's.

Muzn Bamatraf

PhD Student

High-throughput label-free spectroscopic methods for leukaemia diagnosis and prognosis. MSc in Toxicology, Birmingham.

Sinead McCabe

PhD Student

Nanoparticle-based approaches in cell and gene therapies for novel cancer treatments. MSc in Biology, UC San Diego.

Alumni

Dr Conor Horgan · Dr Elzbieta Stepula · Dr Steven Vanuytsel · Dr Magnus Jensen (PhD) · Christina Gidarie (MSc) · Palwinder Kaur (MRes) · Osama Khouj (MRes) · Ben Bowen (MSc) · Margarita White (MSc) · Chloe Roberts (MSc) · Preveen Surendranathan (MSc) · Youxi Zhang (MSc) · Sabiha Khan (MRes) · Kajetha Subaharan (MRes) · Dr Priyanka Bhosale · Dr Jianrong Qiu

Funding & Support

We gratefully acknowledge our funding bodies and partners for their support.

European Research Council (ERC), Consolidator Grant

Cancer Research UK (CRUK)

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

EPSRC

NC3Rs

GlaxoSmithKline

NVIDIA

Wellcome Leap

Galvani Bioelectronics

Contact Us

We are located in an interdisciplinary clinical environment at Guy's Hospital, King's College London.

Contact Information

Label-Free Bioimaging Laboratory
King's College London
Centre for Craniofacial and Regenerative Biology
Floor 17, Tower Wing
Great Maze Pond, London SE1 9RT

mads.bergholt@kcl.ac.uk

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King's College London
Label-Free Bioimaging Laboratory
Floor 17, Tower Wing
Great Maze Pond, London SE1 9RT
+44 (0)207 188 4370