Thomas Schmidt received a PhD in physics on the topic of “Spectroscopic Investigations of Energy- Transfer in NaNO 2 :KNO 2 ” from the University of Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1988. Subsequently he was postdoc at Leiden University, The Netherlands, where he further pursued high-resolution spectroscopy to learn about the glassy state of inorganic and biological material at low temperature. In 1993 he moved to the University of Linz, Austria, where he built up a group that developed single-molecule microscopy at room temperature. In 1999 he was appointed as full professor in Physics of Life Processes at the Leiden Institute of Physics, Leiden University, The Netherlands. Since, his group further developed single-molecule techniques for research in cell biology. His current research interests range from biomimetics to initial steps in cellular signaling, and cell mechanics. He mostly utilizes high-resolution, high-sensitivity optical techniques that permit to follow cellular processes one molecule at a time.
Single-Molecule Imaging – basics, prospects and limitations
The utilization of single-molecule techniques has become widespread in biophysics labs. In this introductory lecture we will review the physical basis of the methodology and learn about the various applications in the biosciences, as well as it’s limitations given by the optical and photophysical constraints in fluorescence imaging. Further, we will discuss in which way such imaging data yield information about clustering and molecular motility and how one can extract those.