JPK
Instruments recently hosted their tenth annual international symposium on the
applications of scanning probe microscopy (SPM) and optical tweezers. Held this
month in the historic Umspannwerk Ost in Berlin, the meeting brought together
more than 100 scientists from around the world. The combination of papers and
posters inspired excellent discussions as attendees presented their results and
shared scientific know how in a relaxed and informal atmosphere.
This year
saw a first presentation from a Chinese user group (Professor Wenke Zhang of
Jilin University) and, with visitors coming from all corners of the globe, it
felt more international than ever. The poster sessions are always popular with
presenters vying to be selected as the winner as judged by their peers. The
standard was higher than ever.
The SPM
papers saw the emergence of a new theme - cellular spaghetti - with three
speakers describing how it is possible to probe and follow processes in nuclear
pore complexes. Probing molecular forces is becoming a very popular topic not
just in research but is being adapted to practical problems encountered in the
field of pharmaceutical science and nanomedicine.
The 2011
SPM poster award went to Huong Nguyen, a PhD student at the Max-Planck-Institute
for Polymer Research in Mainz. She showed how she has used atomic force
spectroscopy to study interactions on the single molecule level. She
demonstrated piconewton resolution in a study of the rupture force of single
small drug molecules binding to a split aptamer. The work illustrated how to
overcome sample preparation through immobilization of both components of the
aptamer to the AFM probe and the sample surface.
The Optical
Tweezers poster award saw a battle between two researchers from the BIOTEC TU
Dresden and for the second year running, Anita Jannasch emerged as the winner
with her work presented jointly with Mohammed Mahamdeh. The study looked at the
inertial effects of a small Brownian particle and the ability to track and measure
the colour of thermal noise intensity. The potential of this work shows
possibilities for application in the development of advanced sensors.
Presenting
the awards, Torsten Jähnke, Chief Technical Officer of JPK, said "the standard
of this year's talks and posters was excellent. I was excited to see another
exciting group of young researchers presenting their posters at our tenth year
of workshops. It shows that where there is good science being presented, we
will continue to attract a big audience."
To
learn more, visit the NanoBioVIEWS
TM web site,
www.nanobioviews.net.
The abstracts of the papers and posters are now available to study online or
may be downloaded in PDF format. For more details about JPK's specialist
products and applications for the bio and nano sciences, please contact JPK on
+49 30533112070, visit the web site:
www.jpk.com
or see more on Facebook:
www.jpk.com/facebook.
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