‘Blink’ and you won’t miss amyloids
Tiny protein structures called amyloids are key to understanding certain devastating age-related diseases, but they are so minuscule they can’t be seen using conventional microscopic methods. A team of engineers at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a new technique that uses temporary fluorescence, causing the amyloids to flash or “blink”, allowing researchers to better spot these problematic proteins.
Nobel laureate Moerner to give 2015 Weissman Lecture
Nobel laureate and Washington University in St. Louis alumnus William E. Moerner, PhD, will present the Weissman Lecture “Fun with Light and Single Molecules Opens Up an Amazing New View Inside Cells” at 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, in Louderman Hall on the Danforth Campus. The lecture describes the surprising techniques he and other chemists developed for imaging individual molecules, techniques that won him the 2014 Nobel Prize in chemistry.