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Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have combined two molecular imaging technologies to create an instrument with incredible sensitivity that provides new detailed insight into dynamic molecular processes. The new technique combines optical traps with fluorescence.
In this illustration, ultra-high-resolution optical traps are combined with single molecule fluorescence detection. The image shows DNA (blue double helix) stretched out between two beads (gray spheres) held by optical traps (red cones) with a bound protein glowing with fluorescence excited by a confocal laser (green cones).Image credit: Matthew Comstock, Center for the Physics of Living Cells, University of Illinois
