Rewriting Life

Peering into Cellular Worlds

New twists on fluorescence imaging are allowing researchers to look closer than ever before.

Jan 1, 2007

The ability to tag individual proteins with fluorescent labels has revolutionized the world of molecular biology by allowing scientists to peer into cells. New twists on fluorescence imaging–described in the following photo essay–allow them to look closer than ever before.

The image above is a mouse small intestine labeled with red and green quantum dots that target two types of proteins, and with a dye that stains cell nuclei blue.