Scientific Organisers: Stefanie Reichelt, Alex Sossick, Nick Barry, Alessandro Esposito and Kirti Prakash
The meeting will begin at 13:00 GMT.
As part of the 'Imaging ONEWORLD' series, the focus of these lectures is on microscopy and image analysis methods and how to apply these to your research. Almost all aspects of imaging such as sample preparation, labelling strategies, experimental workflows, ‘how-to’ image and analyse, as well as facilitating collaborations and inspiring new scientific ideas will be covered. Speakers will be available for questions and answers. The organisers, CRUK CI core facility staff, Gurdon Institute, MRC-LMB, MRC Cancer Unit and NPL will be able to continue the discussion and provide advice on your imaging projects.
Speaker
-
Professor Dr. Jörg Enderlein
Professor of Biophysics, Third Institute of Physics, Georg August University.
Jörg Enderlein has studied physics in Odessa (Ukraine) between 1981 and 1986. He obtained his PhD at Humboldt-University in Berlin (Germany) in 1991 for his research on non-linear reaction diffusion systems. After his PhD, he joined PicoQuant GmbH in berlin as a research scientist, where he was involved in the development of technology for single-molecule fluorescence detection and spectroscopy. After his PostDoc with the group of Dick Keller at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA), he became an assistant professor at Regensburg University (Germany) in 1997. In 2001, he became a Heisenberg Fellow of the German Research Council and a group leader at the Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany’s largest research institution. In 2007, he became full professor for Biophysical Chemistry at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, and since 2008, he is full professor for Biophysics at the Georg August University in Göttingen. His research interests are single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy, super-resolution fluorescence microscopy, and nano-optics and plasmonics.
Abstract
Metal- and Graphene-Induced Energy Transfer Imaging
Jörg Enderlein. Institute of Physics – Biophysics, Georg August University, 37077 Göttingen, Germany.
Cluster of Excellence “Multiscale Bioimaging: from Molecular Machines to Networks of Excitable Cells” (MBExC), Georg August University, 37077 Göttingen, Germany.
Metal-Induced Energy Transfer (MIET) Imaging is a recently developed method that allows for nanometre resolution along the optical axis. It is based on the fact that, when placing a fluorescent molecule close to a metal, its fluorescence properties change dramatically, due to electromagnetic coupling of its excited state to surface plasmons in the metal. This is very similar to Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) where the fluorescence properties of a donor are changed by the proximity of an acceptor that can resonantly absorb energy emitted by the donor. In particular, one observes a strongly modified lifetime of its excited state. This coupling between an excited emitter and a metal film is strongly dependent on the emitter’s distance from the metal. We have used this effect for mapping the basal membrane of live cells with an axial accuracy of ~3 nm. The method is easy to implement and does not require any change to a conventional fluorescence lifetime microscope; it can be applied to any biological system of interest, and is compatible with most other super-resolution microscopy techniques that enhance the lateral resolution of imaging. Moreover, it is even applicable to localizing individual molecules, thus offering the prospect of three-dimensional single-molecule localization microscopy with nanometre isotropic resolution for structural biology. I will also present latest developments of MIET where we use a single layer of graphene instead of a metal film that allows for increasing the spatial resolution down to few Ångströms (Graphene-Induced Energy Transfer or GIET). In combination with single-molecule localization microscopy methods such as dSTORM or PAINT, MIET/GIET imaging offers nanometric isotropic resolution for bioimaging of molecular complexes and cellular structures.