chemistry

Philipp Kukura

Philipp Kukura is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Philipp Kukura rather than just read about it. In short: Philipp Kukura FRS FRSC (born 26 March 1978) is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. He is best known for pioneering contributions to femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy (FSRS), interferometric scattering microscopy (iSCAT) and the development of mass photometry.

Key takeaways

Philipp Kukura belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Philipp Kukura to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Philipp Kukura from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Philipp Kukura FRS FRSC (born 26 March 1978) is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. He is best known for pioneering contributions to femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy (FSRS), interferometric scattering microscopy (iSCAT) and the development of mass photometry.

Education and early life He was born in Bratislava, then Czechoslovakia in a family of Slovak actor Juraj Kukura. In 1984 the family emigrated to Germany. In 2002 he graduated with a Master of Chemistry from the University of Oxford and competed in the 2001 and 2002 Rugby League Varsity matches. In 2006 he completed his PhD in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley College of Chemistry.

Career and research After completing his PhD, Philipp Kukura moved to Zürich. There he worked at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology as a postdoctoral research assistant under the supervision of Professor Vahid Sandoghdar on nano-optics until 2010. He returned to Oxford in 2010 to work initially as an EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellow. In 2011 he was elected to a tutorial fellowship at Exeter College. In 2016 he was promoted to Full Professor of Chemistry. In 2018 Philipp Kukura founded Refeyn Ltd. together with Justin Benesch, Daniel Cole, and Gavin Young to commercialise mass photometry.

Selected publications Ortega Arroyo, J.; Andrecka, J.; Spillane, K. M.; Billington, N.; Takagi, Y.; Sellers, J. R.; Kukura, P. (21 March 2014). "Label-Free, All-Optical Detection, Imaging, and Tracking of a Single Protein". Nano Letters. 14 (4). American Chemical Society (ACS): 2065–2070. Bibcode:2014NanoL..14.2065O. doi:10.1021/nl500234t. ISSN 1530-6984. PMC 4186656. PMID 24597479. Cole, Daniel; Young, Gavin; Weigel, Alexander; Sebesta, Aleksandar; Kukura, Philipp (30 January 2017). "Label-Free Single-Molecule Imaging with Numerical-Aperture-Shaped Interferometric Scattering Microscopy". ACS Photonics. 4 (2). American Chemical Society (ACS): 211–216. doi:10.1021/acsphotonics.6b00912. ISSN 2330-4022. PMC 5323080. PMID 28255572. S2CID 40933123. Young, Gavin; Hundt, Nikolas; Cole, Daniel; Fineberg, Adam; Andrecka, Joanna; Tyler, Andrew; Olerinyova, Anna; Ansari, Ayla; Marklund, Erik G.; Collier, Miranda P.; Chandler, Shane A.; Tkachenko, Olga; Allen, Joel; Crispin, Max; Billington, Neil; Takagi, Yasuharu; Sellers, James R.; Eichmann, Cédric; Selenko, Philipp; Frey, Lukas; Riek, Roland; Galpin, Martin R.; Struwe, Weston B.; Benesch, Justin L. P.; Kukura, Philipp (27 April 2018). "Quantitative mass imaging of single biological macromolecules". Science. 360 (6387). American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS): 423–427. Bibcode:2018Sci...360..423Y. doi:10.1126/science.aar5839. ISSN 0036-8075. PMC 6103225. PMID 29700264.

Honours and awards 2011 Royal Society of Chemistry Harrison-Meldola Award 2015 Royal Society of Chemistry Marlow Award 2017 EBSA Young Investigator Award and Medal 2018 Klung Wilhelmy Science Award (Chemistry) 2019 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists UK (Chemistry) Laureate 2021 RMS Medal for Light Microscopy 2022 Emil Thomas Kaiser Award 2022 Sosei Heptares Prize For Biophysics of the British Biophysical Society 2025 Fellow of the Royal Society

References

External links Professor Kukura’s personal page on Exeter College web Kukura group page Philipp Kukura on Blavatnik Awards Young Scientists page Refeyn Ltd. official web

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Philipp Kukura

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Philipp Kukura claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Philipp Kukura before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Philipp Kukura ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Philipp Kukura

In research: Philipp Kukura appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Philipp Kukura in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Philipp Kukura is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1978 births, Alumni of St Hugh's College, Oxford, Chemists of the University of Oxford, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Philipp Kukura outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Philipp Kukura in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Philipp Kukura means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Philipp Kukura out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Philipp Kukura in simple terms?

Why does Philipp Kukura matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Philipp Kukura?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Philipp Kukura.