A commentary published alongside the studies predicts a more advanced application: imaging single molecules inside living cells. Diamond nanocrystals immersed in a cell's cytoplasm could essentially produce real-time films of the activity of single molecules, such as a protein folding, writes Philip Hemmer, a solid-state physicist at Texas A&M University in College Station.

“These are great experiments,” says Christian Degen, who studies spin physics and imaging at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. He points out that it is very difficult to get the nitrogen defect in just the right place. “It’s been a long struggle to get there.”

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on January 31, 2013.

2 Comments

1. 1. Traveler 007 02:18 PM 2/4/13

   This could be the first step in the direction of Star Treks transporter hA

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2. 2. bucketofsquid 05:41 PM 2/8/13

   If they can make this reliable they would be able to compare protein folding in Alzheimer and non-Alzheimer cells. That would be impressive!

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