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Bright Future for Protein Nanoprobes

By Guest PostMay 2, 2014Sciencealexis ostrowski, berkeley lab, biology, brighter future, bruce cohen, building blocks, daniel gargas, doe, elektronische fussfessel, emory chan, erbium, fluorescent, free asymmetric, future, gewaltdelikte, heterocontact, james schuck, joerg kinzig, laboratory, mexican men, mexico murder rate, molecular foundry, nanocrystals, photobleach, polly myer, single molecules, sodium yttrium fluoride, ytterbium

Berkeley Lab Researchers Discover New Rules for Single-Particle Imaging with Light-Emitting Nanocrystals

The term a “brighter future” might be a cliché, but in the case of ultra-small probes for lighting up individual proteins, it is now most appropriate. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered surprising new rules for creating ultra-bright light-emitting crystals that are less than 10 nanometers in diameter. These ultra-tiny but ultra-bright nanoprobes should be a big asset for biological imaging, especially deep-tissue optical imaging of neurons in the brain.

Working at the Molecular Foundry, a DOE national nanoscience center hosted at Berkeley Lab, a multidisciplinary team of researchers led by James Schuck and Bruce Cohen, both with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division, used advanced single-particle characterization and theoretical modeling to study what are known as “upconverting nanoparticles” or UCNPs. Upconversion is the process by which a molecule absorbs two or more photons at a lower energy and emits them at higher energies. The research team determined that the rules governing the design of UCNP probes for ensembles of molecules do not apply to UCNP probes designed for single-molecules. (more…)

Brighter, Smaller Probes to Uncover the Secret Lives of Proteins

By Guest PostMay 10, 20121 commentSciencealexis ostrowski, andrew mueller, berkeley lab, bruce cohen, cellular mechanism, daniel gargas, delia milliron, disease, elan katz, emory chan, erbium, function, gang han, imagine tracking, james schuck, lanthanide, live cell, los angeles, molecule, nanocrystal, nanoparticle, nayf4, photobleach, protein, radio transmitter, sodium yttrium fluoride, vistamar school, wanda robot, ytterbium

Berkeley Lab scientists create nanoparticle probes that may lead to a better understanding of diseases

Imagine tracking a deer through a forest by clipping a radio transmitter to its ear and monitoring the deer’s location remotely. Now imagine that transmitter is the size of a house, and you understand the problem researchers may encounter when they try to use nanoparticles to track proteins in live cells.

Understanding how a protein moves around a cell helps researchers understand the protein’s function and the cellular mechanisms for making and processing proteins. This information also helps researchers study disease, which at a cellular level may mean that a protein is malfunctioning, stops being made, or is sent to the wrong part of the cell. But nanoparticle probes that are too big can disrupt a protein’s normal activities. (more…)

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Bright Future for Protein Nanoprobes

Brighter, Smaller Probes to Uncover the Secret Lives of Proteins