In the past three decades, the ability to optically manipulate biomolecules has spurred a new
era of medical and biophysical research. Optical tweezers (OT) have enabled experimenters …

Proteins are the active workhorses in our body. These biomolecules perform all vital cellular
functions from DNA replication and general biosynthesis to metabolic signaling and …

Nucleosome DNA unwrapping and its disassembly into hexasomes and tetrasomes is
necessary for genomic access and plays an important role in transcription regulation …

Telomere maintenance by telomerase is essential for continuous proliferation of human cells
and is vital for the survival of stem cells and 90% of cancer cells. To compensate for …

The RNA-binding protein fused in sarcoma (FUS) can form pathogenic inclusions in
neurodegenerative diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal …

Optical tweezers were developed in 1970 by Arthur Ashkin as a tool for the manipulation of
micron‐sized particles. Ashkin's original design was then adapted for a variety of purposes …

The heat-shock proteins (Hsp) are a family of molecular chaperones, which collectively form
a network that is critical for the maintenance of protein homeostasis. Traditional ensemble …

RNA-DNA hybrids are functionally essential structures involved in numerous protein-
dependent processes such as transcription and viral reverse transcription. The hybrid …

How cargoes move within a crowded cell—over long distances and at speeds nearly the
same as when moving on unimpeded pathway—has long been mysterious. Through an in …

Single-molecule manipulation with optical tweezers has uncovered macromolecular
behaviour hidden to other experimental techniques. Recent instrumental improvements …