Biophysics Core Facility

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BCF Services

The BCF supports and develops pipelines for a broad spectrum of biophysical measurements, micro-manufacturing and advanced imaging applications on commercial and custom-built microscopes.

For this purpose, the BCF provides and maintains several advanced microscopy systems that can be booked via our PPMS booking database by users who need to measure biophysical parameters or require cutting-edge imaging solutions for their research. Our staff will help you choosing the most suited system for your application and will assist you during the whole experimental workflow. Contact us for discussing your project!

Optical Trapping and Fluorescence Microscopy

Application and hardware support for two optical tweezers (LUMICKS C-Traps), equipped with 4 traps and correlated fluorescence microscopy (TIRF-WF and confocal, respectively).

DNA Assays

  • Binding kinetics of proteins to DNA substrates under load (e.g. prewetting experiments)
  • Force spectroscopy of DNA-protein (co-) condensates

Protein-Protein Interactions

  • Binding kinetics of proteins
  • Force spectroscopy of proteins and protein complexes

Microrheology

  • Kinetics of protein droplet fusion
  • Viscoelastic properties of protein droplets

Force Calibration

  • Calibration of optical tweezers for non-spherical, coated beads, far away from or close to the sample surface

Imaging and Microscopy

Swept Confocally-Aligned Planar Excitation (SCAPE) Microscopy
Hardware and application support for a custom-built SCAPE single-objective light sheet system for live cell imaging.

  • Ultra-fast volumetric fluorescence imaging
  • High throughput, long-term imaging of sensitive samples
  • DNA Points Accumulation for Imaging in Nanoscale Topography (DNA-PAINT)

Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging and Fluorescence Spectroscopy
Application support for the Olympus Fluoview 3000 confocal laser scanning microscope (CO3) equipped with a Picoquant FLIM system located in the Light Microscopy Facility (LMF).

  • Fluorescence Lifetime imaging (FLIM/PLIM) in the time domain
  • Fluorescence (Cross-) Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS, FCCS)
  • Fluorescence Lifetime (Cross-) Correlation Spectroscopy (FLCS, FLCCS)

Single-Molecule Localisation
Application support for the Nikon TIRF FRAP system (H5) located in the Light Microscopy Facility (LMF).

  • DNA points accumulation for imaging in nanoscale topography (DNA-PAINT)
  • Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy (STORM)/Photo-activated localization microscopy (PALM)

Laser Cutting

Application support for one Zeiss spinning disk microscope equipped with a Rapp Caliburn UV laser cutter (SD3) located in the Light Microscopy Facility (LMF).

Selective UV laser cutting of biological samples

  • Measuring cortical tension and forces in tissues after partial laser cuts

Micropatterning and Structuration

Application and hardware support for the PRIMO-1 micropatterning system from Alvéole.

Micropatterning

  • Custom patterning of surface coatings (e.g., PEG passivation) on glass substrates
  • Patterning of surface coatings on TEM grids for electron microscopy

Structuration

  • Creation of three-dimensional hydrogel structures on surfaces

Nanoindentation

Application support for the Chiaro-ST Nanoindenter from Optics11 (W4), located in the Light Microscopy Facility (LMF).

Tissue elasticity

  • Viscoelastic properties of different materials (gels, cells, or tissues) using micrometer-sized probes for indentation