Gisela Ibanez, our University of Vienna (UniVie) team member, headed over to Freising, Germany, for the 2nd Annual Meeting on Digital Nucleic Acid Photolithography Workshop between 29 and 30 of September 2025.

This two-day international meeting gathered key members of the nucleic acid research community to explore recent advances in photolithographic synthesis and its diverse applications. Hosted and organised by BioAssembler team member Mark Somoza, also from UniVie, the event provided a stimulating environment for discussions spanning spatial transcriptomics and food systems biology, CRISPR–Cas gene editing and nucleic acid therapeutics, nucleic acid chemistry, and digital data storage in DNA.

Gisela delivered an oral presentation entitled “Laser-directed photochemical synthesis of complex DNA microarrays: toward biosensor development”. In her talk, she introduced the BioAssembler project and presented recent progress on the development of the laser exposure system. Gisela highlighted its potential significance for biosensor research, stressing how this approach contributes to advancing the precision and flexibility of complex DNA microarray creation.

The workshop provided an excellent opportunity to exchange knowledge with experts from across disciplines, showcase the project’s progress towards innovative biosensor technology and get some great feedback on our approach to biosensor development.