Sanjeevi Sivasankar was looking for a better tool to study how cells adhere to each other. Cells have surface proteins, called cadherins, that help them stick together. Different kinds of cells have different kinds of cadherins. The typical tools for observing and measuring those proteins focus on tens of thousands of them at a time - providing data on the average molecule in a sample, but not on a single molecule. Sivasankar, an Iowa State University assistant professor of physics and astronomy, wanted to study them one at a time, so he developed a unique, single-molecule microscope.
The basic idea was to combine two single-molecule technologies that had been used separately: atomic force microscope technology that manipulates molecules and measures forces, and fluorescence resonance energy transfer technology that observes single molecules at very high resolution. Using one or the other technology is like "having hands but no eyes or eyes but no hands," said Sivasankar. "We can combine these two technologies into one instrument."
Sivasankar has built a laboratory prototype and improved its measurement capabilities and efficiency. The result is an instrument that could advance studies in biomedical research, drug discovery, cancer diagnostics and bio-sensing applications.
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