Dr Kamila Maciejewska from Wroclaw Medical University has been selected among 19 scholars from across Poland to receive the prestigious Fulbright Senior Award 2026–2027 scholarship. Thanks to the award, she will travel to the United States to conduct research on quantum dots. In the future, the results of her work may contribute to improving the imaging of cancer cells as well as enabling more precise detection and monitoring of disease-related changes.
Dr Maciejewska’s project, “Functional Quantum Dots as Strategic Materials for Imaging Cancer Cells Using Circularly Polarized Luminescence”, aims to develop a tool that could improve the quality of imaging cancer cells in complex biological environments such as the human body. In practice, the research focuses on finding a solution that would help distinguish diseased cells from healthy structures more accurately.
– This is particularly important in cancer diagnostics, where not only the sensitivity of the method matters, but also its precision and ability to detect changes at the earliest possible stage, – says Dr Kamila Maciejewska from the Department of Biochemistry and Immunochemistry at Wroclaw Medical University.
The research will involve the use of quantum dots — extremely small semiconductor structures that emit light when appropriately stimulated. This makes them useful as markers capable of “highlighting” selected cells, their components, or processes occurring in a studied sample.
– The project aims to determine whether such markers can improve the imaging of cancer cells even when the sample contains many different cells and structures that make observation more difficult, – adds the Fulbright scholar.
A particularly important element of the research will be circularly polarized luminescence (CPL), a type of light that can provide more information about the studied material than standard light signals. For researchers, it is important not only that the material emits light, but also how it emits that light, as this may facilitate more precise interpretation of the signal.
– In cancer cell imaging, this may help reduce interference caused by the presence of multiple biological structures and improve the clarity of the resulting image, – explains Dr Kamila Maciejewska.
The project combines nanotechnology, materials chemistry, photophysics, and biomedical sciences. An important part of the research will be carried out at San José State University in California in collaboration with Prof. Gilles Muller, a specialist in chiral spectroscopy.
My stay at the American institution will not only allow me to benefit from Professor Muller’s expertise, but also to perform advanced circularly polarized luminescence measurements using specialized equipment, – explains the Fulbright Senior Award 2026–2027 recipient. – These measurements will make it possible to determine whether the developed quantum dots generate a signal useful for biological imaging
In the long term, the findings of Dr Kamila Maciejewska’s research may contribute to the development of new imaging methods used in the diagnosis and monitoring of cancer.
Although the project is primarily research-oriented, its objectives address one of the major challenges of modern medicine: the need to develop tools that enable faster, more accurate, and safer identification of disease-related changes.
The Fulbright Senior Award, currently operating under the name Fulbright Polish Scholar Award, is a programme supporting the international mobility of researchers from Poland. It is intended for scholars holding at least a doctoral degree and employed at Polish academic or scientific institutions. The programme enables recipients to carry out independent research or research-and-teaching projects at selected host institutions in the United States. This year’s competition received 59 applications, of which 19 were selected for funding.