The laboratory, which is being established at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), is expected to be commissioned on September 22 as part of a broader initiative to train African scientists in photonics—the science of using light to measure, image and sense.
According to the GPOL statement, the laboratory is intended to develop expertise not only in operating sophisticated instruments but also in building, maintaining and improving them locally.
That capacity could have practical consequences in areas ranging from medicine authentication and disease screening to environmental monitoring.
Photonics-based technologies, for instance, can be used to authenticate medicines without opening their packaging, potentially providing a rapid way of detecting substandard or falsified products. Other light-based technologies can support the detection of diseases such as glaucoma and newborn jaundice, while optical sensors can identify heavy metals in soil and water.
The applications are significant because many of the instruments needed for such work are expensive imports, while access to the specialised expertise required to maintain or adapt them locally can be limited.
GPOL’s establishment therefore represents an attempt to address a deeper scientific infrastructure gap: developing the people and institutional knowledge required to build and adapt advanced instruments for Ghanaian and African needs.
The laboratory is being developed by researchers in KNUST’s Department of Physics led by Dr Akyana Britwum, principal investigator and scientific lead, and Dr Michael Kweku Edem Donkor, technical lead and co-principal investigator, with support from international partners.
Its commissioning will take place during the inaugural NYANSAPƆ Photonics School for Health and Safety, a six-day programme bringing together 38 emerging scientists from six African countries and 17 leading researchers from Africa, Europe and North America.
Unlike a conventional scientific conference, the school will place participants in working laboratory sessions, where they will learn the science behind photonic instruments, operate the equipment and analyse the data they generate.
The programme is intended to leave more than equipment behind at KNUST. It is designed to transfer the scientific and technical knowledge needed to sustain and develop the technology locally.
“What sets this school apart is that students do not simply hear about these techniques. They learn the science behind each instrument, operate it themselves, and take the data it produces through to analysis,” Dr Donkor said.
Dr Britwum said the initiative would help Ghanaian researchers and students undertake advanced optics research locally.
“With GPOL and the NYANSAPƆ school, we are establishing the laboratory, the training and the international partnerships that let us as researchers and our students do world-class optics here at home, on problems that matter to Ghana,” she said.
The international faculty includes Dr Peter de Groot, the 2025 president of SPIE, the world’s largest professional society for optics and photonics; Dr Daewook Kim of the University of Arizona, whose work includes optics for large telescopes; and Dr Samuel Achilefu of UT Southwestern Medical Center, known for imaging technology that helps surgeons visualise tumour cells during operations.
Researchers from ICFO in Barcelona, Vanderbilt University and Aix-Marseille Université will teach laboratory modules, with additional contributions from Imperial College London and institutions in Côte d’Ivoire, Togo and Ghana.
The 38 participants are drawn from more than 10 institutions in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, Kenya, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.
The organisers also intend to build the next generation of scientists through an outreach programme at Hwiremoase, where participants will teach hundreds of pupils about photonics at the close of the school.
For KNUST and GPOL, the longer-term objective is to turn photonics from a field in which Ghana primarily uses imported technology into one in which Ghanaian scientists can increasingly design, build, repair and adapt instruments themselves.
The laboratory’s applications in medicine, public health and environmental monitoring provide the immediate case for the investment. But the broader ambition, as outlined by GPOL, is to establish the scientific and technical capacity behind those technologies in Ghana.
This treatment also protects the story journalistically: “according to a statement issued by GPOL” establishes the source, while the story itself does not simply read like a press release.
