PME Distinguished Colloquium Series - Paul Selvin

Title: Single-Molecule Super-Resolution Fluorescence: Applications to Molecular Motors Walking in your Cells and to Memory Formation in your neurons. <br /><br />

Abstract: We study single molecules with fluorescence microscopy which can achieve nanometer accuracy—called FIONA— or similarly, nanometer resolution—called PALM, STORM, or PAINT. This is 10-100x better than conventional fluorescence and won a Nobel Prize in 2014. We will introduce what the techniques are, recent advances (including a new fluorescence technique called MinFlux which enables nanometer resolution in under a millisecond), and importantly, new methods of labelling proteins for observing neurons in live mouse brain slices. For the first application, we will show that certain proteins, known as “molecular motors”, literally walk on tiny roadways, carrying biological cargoes throughout the cell, taking steps of only 16.8 nm. For the second application, we discuss neuroscience, and how your memory works—and what happens when diseases, like Alzheimer’s Disease, takes over. We show that we can “see” memory work in isolated neurons, showing an increase in certain proteins with memory, and for the first time we have the tools to see this on thick (~30 mm) from a mouse.

<a href="https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/94001046652?pwd=bEYzYkQyYXYyRlBqNEo3ZVFWRUR5… "> Zoom Link</a>