Tuesday  |  Conference Center B  |  09:00 AM–09:20 AM

#13131, Innovations in Super Resolution Microscopy

Viruses are organisms that utilize cells of living beings that they invade to reproduce. They consist of nucleic acids, RNA or DNA, underlying proteins, and a protective membrane. Their life cycle comprises three main stages:1)penetration of a cell, b) introduction of their genome generating new viruses,3) release the replicated viruses to the external cellular space for further infection propagation. These processes occurring through varieties of mechanisms and interaction between the virus and the cells. Optics has been a fundamental tool to get information on these mechanisms. Transmission electronic microscopy(TEM) provides information on the life cycle of viruses both static images and dynamic images. Viruses sizes cover the range of 20 nm to about 300 nm, TEM has spatial resolution in this range. A TEM imposes environmental limitations to the observation conditions. To get images of viruses a TEM requires freezing the virus at extremely low temperatures. The TEM images are limited to 2D information, TEM holography is available but has resolution problems.
A nano microscope is being developed with resolution limits in the same range that a TEM. The nano microscope can be utilized to observe viruses under environmental conditions in the range of biological entities and it makes possible dynamic observations. The method of single-virus tracking (SVT) allows following a single virus life cycles giving dynamic information on processes of viruses occurring in cells. SVT gets dynamic information from time-series of diffraction-limited images of viruses obtained from fluorescence microscopy. The proposed microscope will fill the gap in spatial resolution for a more detailed information on local processes.
Innovations in super resolution microscopy

Cesar Sciammarella   Illinois Institute of Technology
Luciano Lamberti   Politecnico di Bari
Lorenzo Santoro   Politecnico di Bari
Federico Sciammarella   MXD Corporation
Eduardo Sciammarella   General Stress Optics Corporation