In recent years, optical tweezers have emerged as an indispensable tool for measuring the forces and displacements associated with cellular and molecular biomechanical events. Optical tweezers use focused laser light to trap and maneuver microscopic objects, and can detect mechanical events that reveal, for example, the mechanisms of motor protein action, RNA folding, chromosome movements, and RNA transcription.
The optical tweezers used in the CMBL have broad capabilities for studying biological systems. Importantly, our optical tweezers integrate the most advanced features from previously described optical tweezer designs into a single instrument, and these features are incorporated into an upright microscope without compromising any imaging modalities.
Below, you'll find our poster on the optical tweezers presented at the 2001 Biomedical
Engineering Society Annual Meeting and a link to our article published in IEEE Trans. Biomed.
Engineering.
Poster presented at the BMES 2001 Annual Meeting
Link to the article
Brouhard GJ, Schek HT, Hunt AJ, "Advanced optical tweezers for the study
of cellular and molecular biomechanics", IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng., 50, 121-125, 2003.
Copyright © 2002. Gary Brouhard. Maintained by David Lorch.