Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell, and William Moerner scooped up the 2014 Chemistry Nobel Prize for their work in super-resolution microscopy, which broke the theoretical limit of microscopic resolution imposed by the wavelength of light. Now, Betzig, of Janelia Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia, and his colleagues have applied the new techniques to watching live cells in action, generating images and videos of protein movement and interactions as the cells internalize molecules. The team published its results this week (August 27) in Science.1
“These methods set a new standard for how far you can push the speed and non-invasiveness of super-resolution imaging,” Betzig said in a press release. “This will bring super-resolution to live-cell imaging for real.”
Betzig and his colleagues achieved their success by improving the spatial resolution of structured illumination microscopy (SIM). With traditional SIM, images are generated by switching on the fluorescent labels that researchers have used to ...
