Biological applications of atomic force microscopy

Principal Investigator: György Váró

The objective of our work is the micro- and nanometer scale characterization of different biological samples such as peptides and oligonucleotides, photosynthetic reaction centers, membrane proteins (bacteriorhodopsin) and the investigation of living cell’s surface and their responses to different extracellular stimuli.



AFM Group (from left to right): Zoltán Bálint, Zsolt Szegletes, Attila Gergely Végh and György Váró

The AFM measurements are performed with an Asylum MFP 3D head and Molecular Force Probe controller (Asylum Research, Santa Barbara, CA, USA, www.asylumresearch.com) equipped with a 100 x 100 µm horizontal piezo stage and an 8 µm working distance vertical piezo. The AFM is mounted on a Zeiss Axiovert 200 invert optical microscope and it is temperature and humidity controlled.



The MFP-3D system.