The team of researchers worked with researchers from Leiden University in the Netherlands, MIT in Cambridge, Mass., the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology in Berlin, Germany, the University of Jena in Germany and Heraeus Quarzglas.
ACS Nano published the research.
Here are six things to know:
1. This system tracker will help researchers view individual proteins and genomic molecules develop at high speeds to create viruses.
2. Vinothan Manoharan, PhD, a Wagner Family Professor of chemical engineering and a physics professor, led the research.
3. The researchers hope to identify intermediate stages in the assembly process, so they can figure out how to interfere with the process.
4. The researchers developed a new optical fiber with a nano-scale channel, smaller than the wavelength of light. The channel is filled with nanoparticles in liquid, and when light is guided through the fiber’s core, it separates the nanoparticles, which are collected by a microscope above the fiber.
5. With this tracker, the researchers saw the motion of viruses measuring 26 nanometeres in diameter at a rate of thousands of measurements per second.
6. Next, they want to track single viral proteins, which scatter 100 times to 1,000 times less light than a single virus.
“Our goal is to understand how viruses manage to assemble spontaneously, so quickly and so robustly,” said Yoav Lahini, research associate and co-first author of the study.
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