Handbook of Single-Molecule Biophysics
The last decade has seen the development of a number of novel biophysical methods that allow the manipulation and study of individual biomolecules. The ability to monitor biological processes at this fundamental level of sensitivity has given rise to an i
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Peter Hinterdorfer, Antoine van Oijen Editors
Handbook of Single-Molecule Biophysics Editorial Advisory Board Nynke Dekker Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
Daniel Müller Biotechnology Center, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
Thomas Schmidt Leiden Institute of Physics, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
Claus Seidel Institut für Physikalische Chemie, University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, The Netherlands
Sunney Xie Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Cheng Zhu Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Xiaowei Zhuang Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
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Peter Hinterdorfer Institute for Biophysics Johannes Kepler University Linz Altenberger Straße 69 4040 Linz Austria [email protected]
Antoine van Oijen Department of Biological Chemistry & Molecular Pharmacology Harvard University Harvard Medical School 250 Longwood Ave. Boston MA 02115 Bldg. C USA [email protected]
ISBN 978-0-387-76496-2 e-ISBN 978-0-387-76497-9 DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-76497-9 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2009921359 c Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Preface
The history of single-molecule sciences can be best captured in three short quotations. Erwin Schrödinger stated in Br. J. Phil. Sci. 3:109 (1952) that “In the first place it is fair to say that we are not experimenting with single particles any more than we can raise Ichthyosauria in the zoo”, demonstrating that the observation of individual molecules was beyond imagination at the time. Subsequently, Richard Feynman’s talk at the December 29,1959, annual meeting of the American Physical Society at the California Institute of Technology titled “There’s plenty of room at the bottom” represents the initial exploration of the microcosmos and the nanoworld. Finally, Joseph M. Beechem wrote in Biophys. J. 67:2133 (1994) “it could very well occur that biophysics (in the next decade) could become dominated by single molecule techniques”, anticipating that with the potent
