Well, hello there.
Did the shiny and beautiful colors of fluorescent proteins catch your attention?
Yes? Good, read on!
Maybe first of all a small introduction is at order. My name is Dries Verhelst and I am a Master Student Biochemistry at GroupT college associated with KULeuven.
As you could of guessed this blog will cover some topics about fluorescent proteins used in my masterthesis. Why fluorescent proteins you might ask? Is there anything else interesting besides their colors? Well the answer is YES! And I can promiss that they are far more than just shiny molecules.
Don’t worry I won’t try to bore you with technical details about them and the biochemical language that goes along with it (unless you are really into that, I can make an extra effort ofcourse), but I can allready let you know that these little diamonds are used in various applications throughout science and our lives.
Starting today, every (few)week(s) I will try to update this blog with some interesting or funny topic(s) regarding the impact these fluorophores (sorry, couldn’t resist) have on our society and vice versa and comment on these topic(s). Feel free to agree or disagree with me on these blogposts in the future!
If you want to know more about these molecules and what they are capable of, follow this blog because yes the future is looking brighter than ever for fluorescent proteins!
See you readers in a (few) week(s)!
Dries
P.S.
More information about myself and my thesis can be found if you click the “about” button.
Dries Verhelst 
Hi Dries,
I will be reading your blogs and can not wait to learn more about the fluorescent proteins. My specialisation is chemistry so I’m not really familliar with your subject. But I will do my best to give a useful contribution through critical replies on your blogs.
Greets
Annekatrijn
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Hi Annekatrijn,
Lovely! Thank you for following my blog, I have to admit I neglected my blog a bit but I will try to be more active in the future! keep track!
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Hello,
For the goal of your thesis, do you want to use these fluorescent proteins to track of the cells (like cancer cell)?
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Hi, Xuemeilu2014,
First of all thank you for following my blog! I hope I can keep you interested to keep following it. As for your question I can say its a good question.
The fluorescent proteins in this case (for this deparment) won’t be used to track cells. They will be used for superresolution fluorescence microscopy techniques. Without going into much detail this technique with fluorescence focuses on overcoming the diffraction resolution barrier of light allowing to enhance details even more (than with normal light) with microscopes.
Its actually maybe a good idea to give a little bit more insight of this topic in my next post.
I hope this answers your question allready a little bit but stay tuned because I will make an update about this matter in my second post so this is clear for everyone!
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Hi
So if I understand it right, you use the fluorescence technique to see a little bit more details than the regular microscope can offer on his own? Or do I understand it wrong?
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@ annekatrijn, the second blog should clarify your question.
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