Hosted by: Mircea Cotlet

My research group exploits fluorescence imaging, in particular single molecule imaging, to study chemical and biological processes at the molecular (or nano-) and cellular levels with unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution and sensitivity. In this presentation I will discuss our recent findings towards studying DNA-based nanomaterials. Starting from fundamental photophysical and photochemical studies towards achieving fluorophore photostability.1 I will next describe how improvements on fluorophore photostability have paved the way to single molecule studies on the assembly, structure, morphology and robustness of DNA nanotubes.2 Emphasis will be placed on the enormous opportunities that single molecule imaging provides to interrogate and study supramolecular materials at the molecular level.