STORM Lab

•   Super-resolution optical microscopy 

(Research field of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014, Technologies to watch in 2019 by Nature)

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• Stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM)

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Fluorescence light microscopy is a widely used technique in molecular and cellular biology for studying protein localization, interaction, and function with high molecular specificity. However, several sub-cellular structures cannot be readily resolved by conventional fluorescence light microscopy because of the diffraction limit, which is about 200–300 nm in the lateral direction and 500–700 nm in the axial direction. To substantially overcome this limitation, various super-resolution fluorescence imaging techniques have recently been developed. These techniques allow precise determination of the location and composition of proteins in a cellular event, and as such, many previously unanswerable questions can now be addressed. The 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for achieving nanoscale spatial resolution in optical imaging underscores the significance of optical nanoscopic imaging. 

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The work in our lab will cover a broad area including developing super-resolution optical microscopy by optically magnifying images of structures in fixed cells and tissues and applying this technology to cell biology and neurobiology. This development is expected to revolutionize biology and medicine by, not the least, eventually allowing for realistic, quantitative descriptions at nano-scale resolution of the dynamics of the complex, multidimensional molecular biological processes that define the phenotypes of all life forms.