A team of Illinois researchers including CCIL members Andrew Smith and Pablo Perez-Pinera have created the smallest quantum dots to date. The lab found that the smaller fluorescent nanoparticles produce better single-molecule imaging results. ACS Nano published their findings in a paper titled, “Optimizing quantum dot probe size for single-receptor imaging.”
Quantum dots can be used in cell receptor imaging, a widely applied biotechnology test performed in life science labs and used for clinical diagnostics of diseases like cancer.