Title:Mild and precise fluorescent dyes for the era of super-resolution imaging of living cells
Presentation time: Tuesday, January 14, 2025, 14:00
Venue:Conference Room 129, Xing Pharmaceutical Building II, Jiangning Campus, China Pharmaceutical University, China
Reporter: Prof. Zhixing Chen
Moderator: Prof. Hua Yang
Dr. Zhixing Chen is currently a researcher at Peking University Institute of Future Technology, a PhD supervisor, and a researcher at the Joint Center for Life Sciences.He received his undergraduate degree from Tsinghua University in 2008, and his PhD in Chemistry from Columbia University in 2014.He conducted postdoctoral research at Columbia University and Stanford University from 2015-2018.He joined the Institute of Molecular Medicine at Peking University in 2018 (to be upgraded to Peking University Institute of Future Technology in 2020) to establish the Molecular Probe Technology Research Lab. to Peking University Institute of Future Technology) and established the Molecular Probe Technology Research Laboratory. The mission of the group is to synthesize and apply the principles of chemistry and biochemistry to invent a new generation of molecular tools, especially fluorescent dyes with excellent optical properties and their preferred biomolecule labeling technologies to build a brand of high-end fluorescent reagents with independent intellectual property rights, and to push forward the development of bioluminescence imaging and related biotechnology.
Abstract：Live-cell bioimaging is moving from the super-resolution era to the four-dimensional, long-duration panoramic imaging era, and this integrated biotechnology requires synergistic innovations in the direction of microscopes, algorithms, and probes. The development of fluorescence microscopy technology, especially the popularization of super-resolution and live-cell fluorescence imaging, has put forward brand-new requirements on the optical properties of fluorescent markers. Three challenges for live cell fluorescent probes:1. How to make fluorescent probes brighter and longer lasting, 2. How to make fluorescent probes able to accurately localize the target structures, especially in live cells, 3. How to make fluorescent probes gentler and not cause photodamage. Based on the principles of photochemistry, medicinal chemistry and biochemistry, we have comprehensively improved the performance of fluorescent probes to create a series of new generation of live cell imaging probes, which can be used for mitochondria, insulin vesicle secretion, neural activity, cell membrane, cytoskeleton, DNA, and other long-duration live cell super-resolution imaging. Our representative achievements: PK Mito series dyes and PK Zinc series dyes have been widely used in mitochondrial and insulin secretion imaging, providing unique new tools for metabolic biology research.
