New nanochemistry technique encases single molecules in microdroplets
Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - 05:49
in Physics & Chemistry
Inventing a useful new tool for creating chemical reactions between single molecules, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have employed microfluidics - the manipulation of fluids at the microscopic scale - to make microdroplets that contain single molecules of interest. By combining this new microfluidic 'droplet-on-demand' method with 'optical tweezers' that could merge multiple droplets and cause their molecular contents to react, the research may ultimately lead to a compact, integrated setup for obtaining single-molecule information on the structure and function of important organic materials, such as proteins, enzymes, and DNA...