A Biomedical Biophysics Laboratory
Our research has two main foci: 1. Pushing the frontiers of nanoscopic molecular dynamics in biophysics; 2. Development of Medical-Multiphoton Microscopic-Endoscopy (M-MPM-E).
Equipment
Olympus FV1000-Multiphoton Excitation Microscope. Used for M-MPM-E research.
PI: Watt W. Webb
Watt W. Webb holds a BS and ScD from MIT. He conducted research in engineering and solid-state and chemical physics at Union Carbide before joining the Cornell faculty in 1961 and is a member of eight graduate Fields. He pioneered Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS), 1972; and Multiphoton Microscopy (MPM), 1990. FCS permits single-molecule detection at nanomolar concentrations, providing temporal resolution of dynamic processes that can be signaled fluorescently. MPM significantly reduces photodamage and minimizes scattering and autofluorescence image degradation, enabling high-resolution, high signal-to-noise imaging in living cells and deep in vivo in tissue.
Current Grant
- NIH-NIBIB Grant Number 1 R01 EB006736-05, "Development of Medical Multiphoton Microscopic Endoscopy."
Related Resources
Figure above illustrates the process of assembly of the Heat Shock Factors labeled green in the free nucleoplasm of the nucleus of the polytene Drosophila nucleus as the temperature is rapidly raised from 23°C to 37°C. Its segregation to the genes it activates in the red-labeled chromatin ensemble is seen as the short stripes of yellowish green on the chromatin. Adapted from Yao, J., K. Munson, W. W. Webb and J. T. Lis, "Dynamics of Heat Shock Factor Association with Native Gene Loci in Living Cells," Nature 442(7106), 1050-1053, 2006.