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SUMMARY:Chemical approaches to improving optical imaging probes
DTSTART:20120924T101500
DTSTAMP:20260929T042813Z
UID:978a6b291428cbead0c4270a9032ee3783108dd2a918780e6e195030
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Professor Stephen Miller\, University of Massachusetts Medical
  School\, USA\nOptical probes are powerful tools for the study of gene exp
 ression\, protein interactions\, and enzymatic activity. However\, live ce
 lls and organisms pose special challenges to optical imaging. Most exogeno
 us fluorophores are poorly suited for use in live cells\, either because t
 hey cannot cross cell membranes\, or they tend to accumulate in intracellu
 lar organelles. Furthermore\, cellular absorption of the excitation light 
 required for fluorescence can result in phototoxicity and high autofluores
 cence background. Bioluminescence is not subject to these limitations beca
 use no excitation light is necessary. Yet light emission from luciferases 
 is fundamentally limited by the photochemistry of the luciferin substrate 
 and its ability to access the luciferase.\n\nBioluminescent and fluorescen
 t probes that freely access intracellular locations and operate at wavelen
 gths where living tissue is most transparent to light would be optimal for
  optical imaging. Our lab’s efforts toward these dual goals will be disc
 ussed:\n\n1) the design and synthesis of new luciferin substrates that sur
 pass the photochemical and accessibility limitations posed by the native f
 irefly luciferase substrate D-luciferin both in vitro and in vivo\, and\n\
 n2) a chemical strategy to deliver water-soluble sulfonated near-IR fluoro
 phores into the cytoplasm of live cells.\n\n\n
LOCATION:SV1717A http://plan.epfl.ch/?room=SV%201717A
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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