In 2000, Thomas Perroud earned a Diploma in chemical engineering at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland). In 2006, he received a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Stanford University, where he developed the photon counting histogram for one-photon excitation, a single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy technique that can identify conformational states in proteins. During his Ph.D., he was awarded a Roche Research Foundation fellowship as well as a Franklin Veatch Memorial fellowship.
As a postdoctoral appointee, Dr Perroud’s work involves macrophages, which are white blood cells–a component of our innate immune system. These phagocytes detect microbial pathogens using transmembrane proteins called Toll-Like Receptors (TLRs). His work is part of a multidisciplinary project aimed at characterizing the role of two bacterial pathogens, F. tularensis and Y. pestis, in the interruption or subversion of TLRs and, consequently, of the human innate immune system’s response.
His work focuses on the development of a microfluidic platform geared towards the full characterization of macrophages activated by lipopolysaccharide, an outer membrane component of Gram-negative bacteria. He is currently developing a fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACS) based on optical tweezers. In the platform, the FACS functionality will ultimately be integrated with upstream flow cytometry and downstream functions such as cell lysis and bioanalytical assays.
He works closely with researchers at Sandia/CA in the Microfluidics and Biosystems Research Departments, as well as with researchers at UTMB and UCSF.
Perroud, T. D.; Kaiser, J. N.; Sy, J. C.; Lane, T. W.; Branda, C. S.; Singh, A. K.; Patel, K. D. Microfluidic-Based Cell Sorting of Francisella tularensis Infected Macrophages using Optical Forces. Analytical Chemistry in press, 2008.
Perroud, T. D., Bokoch, M. P. & Zare, R. N. Cytochrome c conformations resolved by the photon counting histogram: Watching the alkaline transition with single-molecule sensitivity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 102, 17570-17575 (2005).
Perroud, T. D., Huang, B. & Zare, R. N. Effect of bin time on the photon counting histogram for one-photon excitation. Chemphyschem 6, 905-912 (2005).
Huang, B., Perroud, T. D. & Zare, R. N. Photon counting histogram: One-photon excitation. Chemphyschem 5, 1523-1531 (2004).
Perroud, T. D., Huang, B., Wallace, M. I. & Zare, R. N. Photon counting histogram for one-photon excitation. ChemPhysChem 4, 1121-1123 (2003)
