The colloquium will also be streamed online.
Prof. Jelle Hendix, Dynamic Bioimaging Lab, Advanced Optical Microscopy Centre, Biomedical Research Institute, Hasselt University, Belgium
Invited by Prof. Don Lamb
Classic structural biology methods provide an unprecedented atom-level description of the structure of biomolecules. Yet, it remains remarkably challenging to study their realtime action and it is almost impossible to study heterogenous biomolecular assemblies.
At the Dynamic Bioimaging Lab of Hasselt University, we utilize a combination of single-molecule microscopy, a form of fluorescence imaging where the fate of single biomolecules is studied at high time resolution, with microfabrication, a family of methods to generate precise microscopic 3D structures such as microchannels, arrays or thermal actuators. This combination allows us to not only study the 3-dimensional structural dynamics of molecules, but really enables to itemize and interrogate heterogenous biomolecular samples into their constituents, thus allowing to identify the rare, but information-rich events in biology.
During my lecture I will talk about our latest work in this area:
- realtime single-molecule fluorescence microscopy to resolve complex biomolecular thermodynamical landscapes,
- microfluidic chip synthesis and characterization to studying heterogenous biomolecular condensates of Tau protein, a protein related to tauopathies,
- converting an everyday confocal microscope to a microscopic 3D printer for generating suspended lipid bilayer microstructures
- a new type of sample holder that allows lock-in fluorescence detection of biomolecular kinetic rate constants using sinusoidal temperature control