Fluorescent Dyes for Two-Photon Microscopy

A proposed program of research would be oriented toward the development of fluorescent dyes for use in two-photon microscopy. Two-photon microscopy and its predecessor, one-photon microscopy, are variants of fluorescence microscopy, which has become a major technology for biological and physical sciences. The basic idea in fluorescence microscopy is to use fluorescent compounds as markers for various physical and biological processes so that by observation of fluorescence under microscopes, one can locate those processes with high resolution in space and time. Because the fluorescence emitted by a compound can be isolated by its characteristic excitation and emission wavelengths, the compound can be traced with high signal-to-noise ratio, even in a "messy" environment. In two-photon microscopy, excitation of a fluorescent dye involves the concurrent absorption of two photons of approximately twice the wavelength of the peak of the single-photon-absorption spectrum.