Structured Illumination Speeds Up Fluorescence Microscopy

Fluorescence microscopy has opened a whole new world of research for life scientists. Yet one of the biggest drawbacks of the technology has been its inability to visualize fast biochemical interactions. Now a team from University of Georgia in Athens and the University of California in San Francisco developed a method to substantially improve the visualization process, allowing for “100-nm resolution at frame rates up to 11 Hz for several hundred time points”.

Here’s a video page at Nature with clips showing the capabilities of the new technique…
Press release: A guide to the invisible: UGA biomedical engineer publishes on “super-resolution” video imaging …
Abstract in Nature Methods…
Image: GFP-labeled microtubules. Top: the conventional image. Bottom: at 100nm resolution with structured illumination. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Georgia)