Abstract

Single-molecule measurements are a powerful tool for unraveling complex phenomena because unsynchronized dynamics can be directly monitored and heterogeneous properties directly revealed. I will show how new methods allow the use of single-molecule measurements in increasingly challenging environments and enable new insights. In the first section, I will describe the operation of a microfluidic trap that is capable of cancelling Brownian motion, allowing prolonged investigation of solution-phase species, as well as application to look at an intrinsically disordered protein, Tau, at the center of the etiology of Alzheimer’s disease. In the second section, I will describe how nanophotonic devices can enable single-molecule measurements at record high concentration, as well as an application to understanding regulatory mechanisms in ion channels. In the third section, I will describe a new and exceptionally fast idealization algorithm for high throughput optical single-molecule experiments, and application to examination of ion channels.