Single Molecule Detection

Introduction

Detection and spectroscopy of single molecules under biologically interesting conditions has gained considerable interest since the first report of single molecule detection (SMD) in a liquid in 1976. The spectroscopic technique mostly involved in SMD is laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy, mainly applied in two different experimental set-ups: detection within a focused laser beam and detection in a Near-Field Scanning Optical Microscope. Besides these spectroscopic techniques, other methods like Magnetic Resonance become also increasingly important for single molecule studies.  The possibility of detecting and even spectroscopically studying single molecules in solution offers far-reaching perspectives for the application of this technique in analytical chemistry and life sciences. One of the most striking challenges is the application of SMD for ultrafast DNA sequencing. But also the detection of minute amounts of substances and "direct" measurements of their concentration by counting single molecules in definite volumes seem to be possible. Another promising perspective is the monitoring of chemical and structural changes of molecules on a single molecule level, gaining new insight into complex processes which is impossible by bulk measurements. Many methods of single molecule detection and single molecule spectroscopy are now well established and it is time to apply them to important biological and medical problems that are inherently single molecule problems. In addition, there are many more topics with vast potential yet to be realized. Examples include two-photon excitation, new and robust fluorophores such as quantum dots, or metal-fluorophore interactions.

SMD Workshops

In a series of very successful and by now traditional events we recently held the 13th International Workshop on "Single Molecule Detection and ultrasensitive Analysis in Life Sciences". The 14th Workshop will be held in September 2008 at PicoQuant GmbH, Berlin Adlershof.

In 2006 a new annual event about single molecule spectroscope was established in the USA - the Hands-on workshop on "Making Single Molecule Fluorescence (Lifetime) Measurements Simple" is held in cooperation with the Center for Biophotonics at UC Davis and consits of lectures as well as instrumentation and software hands-on training. The last course was held in January 2008 on Thursday and Friday before the Photonics West /  SPIE meeting.

European Time-resolved Fluorescence Courses (TRF)

Following the sucessful short courses on "Principles and Applications of Time-Resolved Fluorescence" by Dr. J.R. Lakowicz at the Center of Fluorescence Spectroscopy (CFS) in Baltimore a European course was held in October 2003 in Berlin, Germany. The course consists of lectures as well as instrumentation and software hands-on training. Local organization is handled by PicoQuant and the key lectures were given by Prof. J. Lakowicz and other invited speakers. The next course will be held in October 2008 in Berlin. This new event complements our Workshops on Single Molecule Detection and Ultrasensitive Analysis in the Life Sciences.

Publications

Some papers our customers and our team published can be found in our bibliography page.

Some Links Related to SMD

• Biophysics Group, Los Alamos National Laboratory
• W.E. Moerner, Department of Chemistry, Stanford University
• Watt Webb Group, Cornell University
• Steven A. Soper, Louisiana State University
• Jörg Enderlein, Uni Tuebingen
• Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy
• Norman Dovichi, Chemistry, University of Washington
• Single Molecule Spectroscopy at RLBL, University of Pennsylvania
• Single Molecule Spectroscopy at ETH Zurich
• Single Molecule Spectroscopy at Universiteit van Amsterdam
• IMB Institut für Molekulare Biotechnologie Jena
• Laser Physics Group University of Umea, Sweden
• Applied Optics Group, University of Twente, The Netherlands
• Neil Woodbury, Arizona, USA
• Katrin Kneipp, MIT, SMD Raman Spectroscopy
• Institute of Biophysics, University of Dresden, Germany
• Institute of Physical Chemistry, University of Düsseldorf
• Institute of Laserphysics and Laser Spectroscopy, University of Bielefeld
• Soft Biosystem Group, Laboratories for Nanobiology, Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University
• Department of Biophysics, University of Leiden, The Netherlands
• Wiley Journal Single Molecules

  Please send us a message if you have suggestions for corrections or additions to this list.