If you are heading to San Francisco for the Biophysical Society’s 66th Annual Meeting, there are three opportunities to learn about the Welsher Lab’s work on active-feedback tracking methods for capturing single molecules and viruses in solution.

Sunday, Feb 20, 1:30 PM – “Capturing the Early Stages of the Virus-Cell Interaction with Active-Feedback Virus-Tracking” – Kevin will give an invited talk as part of Mad City Labs Exhibitor Presentation on “Novel Single Molecule Methods for Tracking, Transport, and Protein Complex Analyses.” Mad City Labs piezo stages are critical to all our active-feedback tracking, so it is an honor to be selected as part of this session. (Esplanade, Room 157)

Tuesday, Feb 22, 1:45 PM – POSTER 1966-Pos/B454 – Come have a discussion about active-feedback single-molecule and single-virus tracking at our poster! (Exhibit Hall ABC)

Tuesday, Feb 22, 8:30 PM – “Untethering Single-Molecule Spectroscopy with 3D Active-Feedback Tracking” – Kevin will give an invited talk as part of a workshop on “Probes for Live Cell Imaging including RNA.” The lineup is star-studded, so be sure to stop by! (South, Level Two, Room 209/210/211)

The Fitzpatrick Institute of Photonics (FIP) here at Duke selects one graduate student each year to give a special seminar to the entire FIP. This year, our very own Courtney Johnson was selected! Courtney will describe her exciting new results on the first stages of the virus-cell interaction with her 3D Tracking and Imaging (3D-TrIm) microscope. Way to go, Courtney! Details at the link below:

https://fitzpatrick.duke.edu/about/events/6221

Alexis is a 1st-year graduate student who joins us from DePaul University and is working on top-secret advances in 3D single-molecule tracking. Peter is a junior undergraduate working on SRS imaging of complex biological systems. Welcome aboard to these two new brave mermosapiens!

Courtney presented the latest results from team TrIm in the Just Another Webinar Series (JAWS) – Chemistry edition. You can see the latest in the real-time 3D visualization of the virus-cell interaction before hits a journal near you!

After a long two years, the annual Chemistry Research Symposium (CRS) returned to Duke Chemistry! It was a great day of talks organized by the graduate students. Shawn, Stacey, and Courtney all gave fantastic talks on their recent works in the world of real-time microscopy!

Want to join our team of rock star microscopists? Apply to Duke Chemistry! You can learn more about the program and meet some members of our team at the upcoming Duke Chemistry Virtual Open House on Wednesday, October 27th, 3-5 PM EDT. Registration closes October 18th.

Register here: chem.duke.edu/openhouse

Welcome to the new cohort of graduate students to Duke Chemistry!

Are you interested in capturing biology and chemistry at speeds and scales previously impossible? Want to learn more about the initial contacts of viruses with host tissue or analyze the behavior of single molecules in complex environments? Like to build things or work with your hands? Like to code or want to learn how to code? If any of these fit you, come do a rotation with us! If you want more information, just contact Kevin directly.

We are currently accepting students to our single-virus (more info: Mapping the Early Stages of Viral Infection) and single-molecule tracking projects (more info: Real-time 3D Microscopy).

Xiaochen has developed a “lock on” spectroscopy for measuring the protein corona on freely diffusing single nanoparticles in situ. The data showed that the “full corona”, comprised of the tightly bound “hard corona” and weakly bound “soft corona”, contains twice as many proteins as ex situ measured hard corona. Therefore, when nanoparticles are removed from the biological fluid for analysis, about half of the proteins that are present in situ are lost. This method shows how critical it is the characterize the nano-bio interface in the native biological solution!

This work has been selected as a “Hot Paper” and will be featured on the back inside cover of an upcoming issue of Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed.. Way to go, Xiaochen! #hotpapersummer

Link to paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202105741

Cover link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202107758