UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST
FACULTY OF PHYSICS

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2026-06-11 23:58
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Conference: Bucharest University Faculty of Physics 2026 Meeting


Section: Biophysics; Medical Physics


Title:
Single Molecule Biophysics, a New Promising Technique in Biophysics


Authors:
Aurel I.POPESCU, Claudia G. CHILOM


Affiliation:
Department of Electricity, Solid Physics and Biophysics, Faculty of Physics,

University of Bucharest


E-mail
prof.aurel.popescu@gmail.com


Keywords:
Protein folding, DNA winding, Magnetic tweezers, Optical tweezers, FRET


Abstract:
In the last decades, a rapid development of a new and promising branch of biophysics had emerged: the single-molecule biophysics (SMB). In contrast to the conventional techniques approaching simultaneously a great number of molecules, SMB is dealing with structure, dynamics, and function of individual molecules (i.e., free of interactions with other molecules, excepting water as a solvent). In this way, some specific molecular properties, hidden by averaging over molecular ensembles, are revealed. At least, two reasons make SMB powerful for the study of complex biomolecules: a) the molecular properties are measured one molecule at a time, this providing more directly the measurement of the molecular properties; b) the dynamics of the systems are measured under equilibrium conditions for single molecules. The main techniques used by SMB could be enumerated as follows: techniques to monitor and manipulate individual biomolecules (e.g., atomic force microscopy, optical and magnetic tweezers), techniques in super-resolution and functional imaging, techniques for studies of physical properties of biomolecules (protein folding, biophysics of proteins, DNAs, and RNAs) etc.


References:

Popescu I. Aurel, Biophysics. Current Status and Future Trends, University of Bucharest Edition House, 2016

Chilom C. G., Bărbînţă-Pătraşcu, M. E., Găzdaru, D. M., Popescu, A. I., Single Molecule Biophysics: a Promising Technique in Biophysics, National Conference of Biophysics, 2 - 4 June 2016, Cluj-Napoca