What I do
I study physical chemistry and single-molecule spectroscopy. I also run the blog Everyday Scientist.
Affiliations
Current affiliations
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- Position
- graduate student
- Company
- Stanford University
- Further information
Location
- City:
- Stanford, California, United States
- Hub:
- San Francisco Bay Area
Interests
physical chemistry, single-molecule spectroscopy, biophysics, blogging, scientific community
Projects
Recent Project:
Single-Molecule Spectroscopy—Designing Photoactivatable Fluorophores: I have reengineered a red-emitting DCDHF push–pull fluorophore so that it is dark until photoactivated with a short burst of low-intensity violet light. Photoactivation of the dark fluorogen leads to conversion of an azide to an amine, which shifts the absorption to long wavelengths. After photoactivation, the fluorophore is bright and photostable enough to be imaged on the single-molecule level in living cells. This provides a new class of bright photoactivatable fluorophores, as are needed for super-resolution imaging schemes that require active control of single molecule emission. Recently, a colleague in the Moerner lab used an azido DCDHF to perform 3D super-resolution measurements in a polymer film. Because the fluorophore emits millions of photons, it was possible to localize single molecules in three dimensions to less than 20 nm.
Publications
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Lord S, Conley N, Lee H, Nishimura S, Pomerantz A, Willets K, Lu Z, Wang H, Liu N, Samuel R, Weber R, Semyonov A, He M, Twieg R, Moerner W. DCDHF Fluorophores for Single-Molecule Imaging in Cells ChemPhysChem (1) , 55 - 65 (2009) doi: 10.1002/cphc.200800581
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Lu Z, Liu N, Lord S, Bunge S, Moerner W, Twieg R. Bright, Red Single-Molecule Emitters: Synthesis and Properties of Environmentally Sensitive Dicyanomethylenedihydrofuran (DCDHF) Fluorophores with Bisaromatic Conjugation Chem. Mater. (5) , 797 - 810 (2009) doi: 10.1021/cm801783f
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Pavani S, Thompson M, Biteen J, Lord S, Liu N, Twieg R, Piestun R, Moerner W. Three-dimensional, single-molecule fluorescence imaging beyond the diffraction limit by using a double-helix point spread function Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (9) , 2995 - 2999 (2009) (Epub 13 Feb 2009) doi: 10.1073/pnas.0900245106
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Lord S, Conley N, Lee H, Samuel R, Liu N, Twieg R, Moerner W. A Photoactivatable Push−Pull Fluorophore for Single-Molecule Imaging in Live Cells J. Am. Chem. Soc. (29) , 9204 - 9205 (2008) doi: 10.1021/ja802883k
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Lord S, Lu Z, Wang H, Willets K, Schuck P, Lee H, Nishimura S, Twieg R, Moerner W. Photophysical Properties of Acene DCDHF Fluorophores: Long-Wavelength Single-Molecule Emitters Designed for Cellular Imaging J. Phys. Chem. A (37) , 8934 - 8941 (2007) doi: 10.1021/jp0712598
