Achievement

Michael Malik has designed, constructed, and characterized a high-speed laser line scanning microscope and imaged quantum dots on glass and on fixed cells. Analysis of hyperspectral data allows the relatively unique spectral signature of each quantum dot to be used to help resolve uncertainties when connecting points into trajectories, allowing for single particle tracking in relatively densely labeled samples. In recent years, single particle tracking of quantum-dot-labeled membrane proteins has yielded significant biological insights. In conventional single particle tracking, at most 2-3 colors of quantum dots can be used, with sparse labeling density. The new instrument, with the ability to acquire hyperspectral images (128 spectral channels over 500 to 800 nm) at a rate of 30 frames per second, circumvents these limitations. Knowledge acquired from the INCBN IGERT courses and seminars was helpful in planning and characterization of the quantum dot samples.