We are very pleased to announce two new C-Trap® installations in China, one at the Microscopy Core Facility at Westlake University and one at the Institute of Advanced Studies at Soochow University.
We begin with the group of Dr. Huizhong Xu at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Soochow University. Their newly installed C-Trap combines optical tweezers with confocal microscopy and is now available to students and postdocs in Dr. Xu’s lab, as well as several collaborators in other departments and affiliated hospitals.
The Xu lab is specifically interested in RNA folding in different biological contexts. The high resolution and real-time visualization provided by the C-Trap will further clarify the kinetics and energetics of the RNA folding intermediate states, which were previously hard to assess. Besides, the group can now also explore the effect of drug molecules on the RNA folding behavior and hopefully provide microscopic insight into their mode of action.
With such high resolution measurements, we hope to contribute to RNA-targeted therapeutics where RNA folding plays a critical biological role. — Dr. Huizhong Xu, Soochow University
Following on, we have a new installation at the renowned Westlake University. The C-Trap installed at Westlake University has been configured with various upgrades including quadruple optical traps and confocal microscopy.
Multiple groups at Westlake University will use the C-Trap to investigate a broad range of applications including protein-protein or DNA-protein interactions, how small molecules affect protein conformational change, membrane protein unfolding, RNA secondary structural changes, and spliceosome dynamics.
“The C-Trap expands the capabilities at the Microscopy Core Facility, providing our users a powerful tool to probe and visualize interactions at the single-molecule level.” — Dr. Yalin Wang, Westlake University
We wish all C-Trap users good luck with their ongoing research and are excited about their upcoming results!
C-Trap® system at the Microscopy Core Facility at Westlake University
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