A pair of Colorado State University researchers have won a $1 million grant to help them create a laser microscope they hope will illuminate how molecules communicate with each other and how sometimes that communication goes awry.
Stu Tobet, director of CSU’s School of Biomedical Engineering, and electrical engineering professor Randy Bartels said they hope the three-year W.M. Keck Foundation grant will enable them to build and test a microscope that will provide close-up views of small groups of molecules.
People have been trying to figure out how to visually bore into what those molecules are up to for quite a while, Tobet said.
“We’ve had the fundamental biological problem around for a while, with no way to put our hands on it other than clumsy ways.”
He said a lot of people are watching the progress at CSU.
“We think the technology is going to be something a lot of people are going to want,” Tobet said.
Bartels said while the problem isn’t new, the approach they’ve come up with for building a better microscope is.
“The difference between what we’re doing and what people have done before is we’re taking laser cultures that are short, bright flashes in time” he said.
“Those short, bright pulses of light should let us get to lower concentrations so we can visualize cells talking to each other,” Bartels said.
Deciphering those molecular conversations should help researchers better understand cancer – which results from miscommunication that causes cells to run amok, Bartels said.
“Cancer cells divide when they’re not supposed to because they get the wrong signals. Those signals are handled by the microscope we want to develop.”
The prototype of the microscope would be housed in a laboratory in a new engineering building. Construction of that new building is scheduled to start this spring.
The Los Angeles-based Keck Foundation funds high-risk projects in science and engineering, medical research and education and other fields that “push the edge of the field, present unconventional approaches to intractable problems” and have the potential to break open new territory, according to the foundation website.
