Chemical and Biological Switches

化学和生物开关

• 批准号: 155110-2012
• 负责人: Woolley, Andrew
• 金额: $ 6.27万
• 依托单位: University of Toronto
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2014-01-01 至 2015-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=545631
• 关键词: Chemical; Biological; Switches

Complex living systems, such as a developing multicellular organism, remain a barely charted frontier in our molecular understanding of the natural world. One cannot achieve a molecular understanding of such systems solely by studying their isolated components; to capture their essence one must devise methods to study them intact. Optical methods for manipulating molecular structure and function offer the potential to unravel some of the complexity of living systems. They can be used to target individual molecular species at specific sites with very precise timing inside living animals. The power of this approach has been recognized widely ("Method of the Year" in Nature Methods 2010) but there is still a long way to go to make optical control of molecules in vivo generally practical.

复杂的生命系统，例如正在发育的多细胞生物体，在我们对自然世界的分子理解中仍然是一个几乎没有绘制的前沿。仅通过研究这些系统的孤立组成部分，人们无法从分子角度理解这些系统。为了捕捉它们的本质，我们必须设计出方法来完整地研究它们。操纵分子结构和功能的光学方法为揭示生命系统的一些复杂性提供了潜力。它们可用于在活体动物体内以非常精确的时间定位特定位点的单个分子种类。这种方法的力量已得到广泛认可（2010 年《自然方法》中的“年度方法”），但要使体内分子的光学控制普遍实用，还有很长的路要走。