Skip to main content

10.05.2023   kl. 11:15 - 12:15

DIAS Nobel Colloquium: Stefan Hell, Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Göttingen & Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Heidelberg

MINFLUX nanoscopy and related matters



We are looking forward to welcoming Stefan Hell, director at both the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen and the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany, at the Danish Institute for Advanced Study.




In 2014 he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy.




In this talk, he will show how an in-depth description of the basic principles of diffraction-unlimited fluorescence microscopy (nanoscopy) has spawned a new powerful superresolution concept, namely MINFLUX nanoscopy. MINFLUX utilizes a local excitation intensity minimum (of a doughnut or a standing wave) that is targeted like a probe in order to localize the fluorescent molecule to be registered.



In combination with single-molecule switching for sequential registration, MINFLUX has obtained the ultimate (super)resolution: the size of a molecule. MINFLUX nanoscopy, providing 1–3 nanometer resolution in fixed and living cells, is presently being established for routine fluorescence imaging at the highest, molecular-size resolution levels.



Relying on fewer detected photons than popular camera-based localization, MINFLUX and related MINSTED nanoscopies are poised to open a new chapter in the imaging of protein complexes and distributions in fixed and living cells. MINFLUX is also set to transform the single-molecule analysis of dynamic processes, as already demonstrated by tracking in detail the unhindered stepping of the motor protein kinesin-1 on microtubules at up to physiological ATP concentrations, and providing answers to longstanding questions with respect to the kinesin-1 mechanochemical cycle.





About:

Stefan Hell is credited with having conceived, validated and applied the first viable concept for overcoming Abbe’s diffraction-limited resolution barrier in a light-focusing fluorescence microscope. For this accomplishment he has received numerous awards, including the 2014 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.



He received his doctorate (1990) in physics from the University of Heidelberg. From 1991 to 1993 he worked at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, followed by stays as a senior researcher at the University of Turku, Finland, between 1993 and 1996, and as a visiting scientist at the University of Oxford, England, in 1994. In 1997 he was appointed to the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry (named Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences since 2022) in Göttingen as a group leader, and was promoted to director in 2002. From 2003 to 2017 he also led a research group at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). Hell holds honorary professorships in physics at the Universities of Heidelberg and Göttingen.





Read more about Stefan W. Hell here and here




Read more about Stefan Hell Labs here






The lecture takes place in the DIAS Auditorium, Fioniavej 34. Everybody is welcome and no registration is needed.





Live stream it at youtube.com/@danish-ias