SINGLE-MOLECULE DETECTION - APPLICATIONS TO ULTRASENSITIVE BIOCHEMICAL-ANALYSIS

Recent developments in laser-based detection of fluorescent molecules have made possible the implementation of very sensitive techniques for biochemical analysis. We present and discuss our experiments on the a pplications of our recently developed technique of single-molecule det ection to the analysis of molecules of biological interest. These newl y developed methods are capable of detecting and identifying biomolecu les at the single-molecule level of sensitivity. In one case, identifi cation is based on measuring fluorescence brightness from single molec ules. In another, molecules are classified by determining their electr ophoretic velocities.