Aug. 12, 2010

Living Cells Made to Fluoresce

Individual molecules and their dynamics can also be made visible in living cells using conventional fluorophores at a resolution of around 20 nanometers. How this is done is being revealed for the first time by researchers from Würzburg, Bielefeld, and New York in the journal Nature Methods. moreJun. 02, 2010

Giving Proteins a New Glow

Since the 1990s, a green fluorescent protein known simply as GFP has revolutionized cell biology. Originally found in a Pacific Northwest jellyfish, GFP allows scientists to visualize proteins inside of cells and track them as they go about their business. Two years ago, biologists who discovered and developed the protein as a laboratory tool won a Nobel Prize for their work. moreJun. 01, 2008

Advanced Light Microscopy Methods

Light microscopy has been a tool for biological research for centuries and thus is one of the oldest methods used in biological and medical sciences. The inherent limitation of light microscope resolution to structures only slightly smaller than intracellular organelles has posed a severe limitation to this technology for more than a century and was one of the reasons why electron microscopy with its much higher resolution was developed. more