Single Molecule Biophysics at UC Berkley, Departments of Molecular and Cell Biology, Physics, and Chemistry as well as the Physical Biosciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

https://physics.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/carlos-bustamante

Carlos Bustamante’s group was the first to grab one molecule of DNA from its ends to study its elasticity. This experiment made it possible to obtain a precise and quantitative description of the elastic response of polymer molecules, a problem that had eluded polymer scientists until then. It also signaled the birth of the field of “Single Molecule Force Spectroscopy” a methodology in which forces are applied to individual molecules to characterize their properties, or to determine the forces that they generate during their reactions. Force spectroscopy is being widely used today to apply forces and study with exquisite precision the operation of “molecular motors”, i.e., the tiny protein machines that perform many important functions in the cell, such as transcription and translation (RNA polymerase, ribosomes). Using Optical Tweezers, scientists can play “tug-of-war” with a single motor and learn a great deal about its mechanism of operation.