Single molecule techniques comprise a set of experimental methods that detect, manipulate, and analyze individual biomolecules or molecular complexes, circumventing ensemble averaging and revealing heterogeneity in structure, dynamics, and function. Core modalities include single-molecule fluorescence (e.g., smFRET, TIRF microscopy), optical and magnetic tweezers, atomic force microscopy, and nanopore-based sensing. These techniques enable direct measurement of forces, conformational changes, binding/unbinding events, and reaction pathways with nanometer spatial and millisecond (or better) temporal resolution. They are widely applied to study nucleic acid–protein interactions, molecular motors, enzyme kinetics, folding energy landscapes, and mechanotransduction at the level of individual molecules.
Conventional MRI scans, familiar to us from hospitals, have a resolution of about one-tenth of a millimeter, which allows them to image incredibly thin slices of our bodies from head to toe, helping physicians diagnose a ...
Nanophysics
May 19, 2025
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132
Imagine you are playing the guitar—each pluck of a string creates a sound wave that vibrates and interacts with other waves. Now shrink that idea down to a small single molecule, and instead of sound waves, picture vibrations ...
Condensed Matter
May 7, 2025
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61
A research team affiliated with the Nano Optics Group within the Department of Physics at UNIST has announced the successful implementation of a plasmonic structure capable of precisely adjusting nanometer-sized gaps in response ...
Nanophysics
Mar 25, 2025
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67
A platform developed nearly 20 years ago previously used to detect protein interactions with DNA and conduct accurate COVID-19 testing has been repurposed to create a highly sensitive water contamination detection tool.
Bio & Medicine
Feb 27, 2025
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99
In molecular shuttles, a ring molecule is threaded onto a linear molecular strand and can move between two portions of the strand, called stations, in response to external stimuli. Chemical stimuli, light or mechanical forces ...
Nanophysics
Feb 20, 2025
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40
UC Riverside scientists have developed a nanopore-based tool that could help diagnose illnesses much faster and with greater precision than current tests allow, by capturing signals from individual molecules.
Bio & Medicine
Jan 2, 2025
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192
SMU Lyle mechanical engineering graduate student Kamruzzaman Joty has introduced a new technique in nanotechnology for detecting and analyzing biomolecules, potentially paving the way for new methods of early disease detection.
Bio & Medicine
Dec 5, 2024
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34
Controlling matter at the atomic level has taken a major step forward, thanks to nanotechnology research by an international team of scientists led by physicists at the University of Bath.
Nanophysics
Dec 3, 2024
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115
In Nijmegen, Netherlands, researchers have installed the world's first microscope capable of live imaging of biological processes in such detail that moving protein complexes are visible. This new microscopic technique was ...
Bio & Medicine
Nov 11, 2024
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262
A team of chemical biologists at the University of Washington, working with colleagues at Oxford Nanopore Technologies, has developed a protein sequencing process that involves pulling proteins through nanopores in a lipid ...
