Mar. 26, 2012

Imaging Biomolecules with Optical Nanoantennas

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley, have developed the first practical application of optical nanoantennas in cell membrane biology. A scientific team led by chemist Jay Groves has developed a technique for lacing artificial lipid membranes with billions of gold "bowtie" nanoantennas. moreSep. 01, 2011

Portable, Dual-Mode Microscope: Holograms Instead of Lenses

A compact, light-weight, dual-mode microscope that uses holograms instead of lenses have been built by researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), USA. To serve remote areas of the world, doctors, nurses and field workers need equipment that is portable, versatile, and relatively inexpensive. The team describes the new device in a paper published in the open-access journal Biomedical Optics Express.
moreAug. 25, 2011

Controlling Transport through Nuclear Pore Complex

Nuclear Pore Complexes (NPCs), large protein structures which span the nuclear membrane in eukaryotic cells and mediate the exchange of materials between the nucleus and cytoplasm, play a vital role in many aspects of cellular physiology including gene expression. Defects in NPC function are implicated in a number of autoimmune diseases, leukaemias and others cancers. Also, nuclear transport plays a pivotal role in viral infections. moreJul. 25, 2011

Multidirectional Selective Plane Illumination Microscopy: Carl Zeiss Obtains Licence from ...

Carl Zeiss has received a licence from the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF), USA for the commercialization of "Multidirectional Selective Plane Illumination Microscopy" (mSPIM), an advanced illumination technique for light sheet fluorescence microscopy. moreApr. 19, 2011

Electron Microscopy: Illuminating Life in Never-before-seen Detail

Led by Nobel laureate Roger Tsien , PhD, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and UCSD professor of pharmacology, chemistry and biochemistry, a team of scientists radically re-engineered a light-absorbing protein from the cress plant Arabidopsis thaliana. When exposed to blue light, the altered protein produces abundant singlet oxygen, a form of molecular oxygen that can be made visible by electron microscopy (EM). moreJan. 25, 2011

GRIN Plasmonics

A team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California, Berkeley, have carried out the first experimental demonstration of GRIN - for gradient index - plasmonics, a hybrid technology that opens the door to a wide range of exotic optics, including superfast computers based on light rather than electronic signals, ultra-powerful optical microscopes able to resolve DNA molecules with visible light, and "invisibility" carpet-cloaking devices. moreFeb. 18, 2010

Fluorescent Probes Light up Cancerous Tumors

Building on his Nobel Prize-winning work creating fluorescent proteins that light up the inner workings of cells, a team of researchers led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Roger Tsien, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology, chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego (USA) and the Moores UCSD Cancer Center has developed biological probes that can stick to and light up tumors in mice. moreDec. 17, 2009

Molecular Scale Resolution Possible with N-SIM

Nikon Instruments announced that Nikon has signed an agreement with the University of California (USA), San Francisco Office of Technology Management for Structured Illumination Microscopy (SIM) technology. Under the terms of the agreement, UCSF will license its technology to make N-SIM enabled microscopes designed to realize resolution higher than can be achieved by conventional optical microscopes. moreApr. 01, 2007

Electric Lithography: Sub-micrometer Protein Patterning

Electric Lithography: Sub-micrometer Protein Patterning - Y. Chang and co-workers of the University of California, Los Angeles, USA, report an electric lithographic (EL) technique to generate protein patterns with sub-micrometer resolution on a poly(N-tBOC-2-aminoethyl methacrylate) surface. In the EL process, an electric potential is applied between metal patterns on a mask and the poly(N-tBOC-2-aminoethyl methacrylate) layer to electrochemically induce the dissociation of the tBOC from the amine functional groups. more