I will show how an in-depth description of the basic principles of diffraction-unlimited fluorescence microscopy has spawned MINFLUX, a recent superresolution method that has reached the resolution of the size of a fluorophore molecule. Providing 1–3 nanometer resolution in fixed and living cells, as well as localization precisions in the Angström range, MINFLUX and the related MINSTED concept are being established for routine applications in the biomedical sciences. Relying on fewer fluorescence photons than other methods, these techniques are also poised to characterize dynamic processes at the single protein level, as already demonstrated by tracking sub(nanometer) details of the unhindered stepping of the motor protein kinesin-1 on microtubules at up to physiological ATP concentrations.
嘉宾介绍
Stefan W. Hell
Winner of the Nobel Prize in ChemistryStefan W. Hell received his doctorate (1990) in physics from the University of Heidelberg. From 1991 to 1993 he worked at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and followed with stays as a senior researcher at the University of Turku, Finland, between 1993 and 1996, and as a visiting scientist at the University of Oxford, England, in 1994. In 1997 he was appointed to the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen as a group leader and was promoted to director in 2002. From 2003 to 2017 he also led a research group at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). Hell holds honorary professorships in physics at the Universities of Heidelberg and Göttingen.
Stefan W. Hell is credited with having conceived, validated and applied the first viable concept for overcoming Abbe’s diffraction-limited resolution barrier in a light-focusing fluorescence microscope. For this accomplishment he has received numerous awards, including the 2014 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.