Imaging enzyme activity with ultrasound
Research News
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For years, Caltech’s Mikhail Shapiro, a TCCI®-affiliated faculty member, has been working to extend ultrasound imaging into the microscopic realm. Now, with a new breakthrough based on genetic engineering, he is making it possible for researchers to use ultrasound to watch enzymes at work within cells.
In a new paper appearing in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, Shapiro and lead authors Anupama Lakshmanan (PhD ’19) and medical engineering graduate student Zhiyang Jin, and their fellow researchers, describe how they have harnessed the genes for a protein that helps bacteria float in water to create a microscopic ultrasound marker that indicates when certain enzymes are active inside cells.
