个人简介

Senior Editor, Journal of Physical Chemistry Outstanding Achievement in Research Program Development Award Visiting Lecturer, National Science Council, Taiwan Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award Blanchard Assistant Professor Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow National Science Foundation, Faculty Early CAREER Award

研究领域

Chemical and Biological Imaging/Molecular Biophysics/Nanoscience and Technology/Physical Chemistry/Spectroscopy and Dynamics

Dr. Dickson's group is developing novel single molecule methods for the study of intermolecular interactions in biological and materials systems. By directly imaging anisotropic dipolar single molecule emission and modeling expected emission patterns, we have developed the world's only methods for determining true 3-D single molecule orientations. Since each molecule interacts differently with its surroundings, great diversity is observed in molecular behaviors. For example, single molecules in polymeric matrices exhibit surprising rotational mobilities that are indicative of nanoscale polymer dynamics. Such molecular orientational studies directly probe both biological and materials systems to provide greatly enhanced understandings of their dynamics. Single Molecule Biophysics. Having observed orientation-dependent interactions of fluorescently labeled, single proteins, precise studies of biological mechanisms are performed. Unfortunately, standard fluorescent labels are often unsuitable for long-time single molecule imaging, especially in living systems. Thus, in order to make single molecule methods more accessible, we are developing Au and Ag nanoclusters as a new class of fluorescent labels in biology. These high brightness, robust nanomaterials should enable direct labeling of proteins to image live cells, study protein-protein interactions, and potentially watch individual proteins as they fold to their native conformations. Au and Ag nanoclusters exhibit discrete excitation and emission due to being composed of only a few atoms. Consequently, with size-tunable optical properties and absoprtion comparable to semiconductor quantum dots, but with improved photostability, these nanoclusters offer new opportunities in biological labeling. For example, the extremely small size will be less invasive; noble metals are not toxic; and their discrete energy levels enable energy transfer experiments to be performed—all with weak mercury lamp illumination on the single molecule level. Much brighter and more robust than organic dye molecules, these advanced inorganic nano-materials are being utilized both as optical memory elements and as photo-activated biological labels. Optical Properties of Individual Nanoparticles. We have created and are currently studying the properties of extremely fluorescing Ag clusters . Having made these water-soluble, the outstanding photostability and brightness of DNA-encapsulated Ag nanocluster emitters offer great promise as materials and biological labels. SAFIRe. We have developed the concept of optically modulated fluorescence for selective recovery of our emitters from within overwhelming background. This adapts the concept of modulation as used in traditional high resolution absorption spectroscopy to fluorescence imaging, and has allowed discrimination of nanocluster, cyanine dye, and fluorescent protein signals with signal:background improvements exceeding 100-fold. This expands the dimensionality of imaging to include dark state lifetimes, and is performed by modulating long-wavelength transient absorptions of our designed emitters. Such methods do not increase background, but simply shift our signals of interest to a unique detection frequency, enabling its selective recovery without background. Interaction timescales and selective imaging enable a wide variety of protein interactions and locations to be studied.

近期论文

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Rapid Cytometric Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing Utilizing Adaptive Multidimensional Statistical Metrics. Huang, Tzu-Hsueh; Ning, Xinghai; Wang, Xiaojian; Murthy, Niren; Tzeng, Yih-Ling; Dickson, Robert M. Analytical Chemistry. 2015, 87 (3), pp 1941–1949. Optically Modulated Fluorescent Proteins Enhance Sensitivity in Live Cell Imaging. Jablonski, Amy E.; Issaeva, Irina; Chen, Yen-Cheng; Hsiang, Jung-Cheng; Vegh, Russell B.; Bagchi, Pritha; Bommarius, Bettina; Bommarius, Andreas S.; Tolbert, Laren M.; Fahrni, Christoph J.; Dickson, Robert M. Biophysical Journal. 2014, Volume 106, Issue 2, 607a. Optically modulatable blue fluorescent proteins. Jablonski, Amy E.; Vegh, Russell B.; Hsiang, Jung-Cheng; Bommarius, Bettina; Chen, Yen-Cheng; Solntsev, Kyril M.; Bommarius, Andreas S.; Tolbert, Laren M.; Dickson, Robert M. Journal of the American Chemical Society. 2014, 135 (44), pp 16410–16417. DNA-Templated Molecular Silver Fluorophores. Petty, Jeffrey T.; Story, Sandra P.; Hsiang, Jung-Cheng; Dickson, Robert M. Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. 2013, 4 (7), pp 1148–1155. Modulated Fluorophore Signal Recovery Buried within Tissue Mimicking Phantoms. Sarkar, Saugata; Fan, Chaoyang; Hsiang,Jung-Cheng; Dickson, Robert M. Journal of Physical Chemistry. 2013, 117 (39), 9501–9509. Generation of luminescent noble metal nanodots in cell matrices. Choi, Sungmoon; Dickson, Robert M.; Lee, Joon-Kyu; Yu, Junhua Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences. 2012, 11, issue 2, 274-278. Developing luminescent silver nanodots for biological applications. Choi, Sungmoon; Dickson, Robert M.; Yu, Junhua Chemical Society Reviews. 2012, 41, issue 5, 1867-1891. Optical Modulation and Selective Recovery of Cy5 Fluorescence. Fan, Chaoyang; Hsiang, Jung-Cheng; Dickson, Robert M. ChemPhysChem. 2012, 13, issue 4, 1023-1029. Signal Discrimination Between Fluorescent Proteins in Live Cells by Long-Wavelength Optical Modulation. Jablonski, Amy E.; Hsiang, Jung-Cheng.;Bagchi, Pritha; Hull, Nathan; Richards, Chris I.; Fahrni, Christoph J.; Dickson, Robert M. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. 2012, 3, 3585-3591. Tailoring silver nanodots for intracellular staining. Choi, Sungmoon; Yu, Junhua; Patel, Sandeep A.; Tzeng, Yih-Ling; Dickson, Robert M. Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences. 2011, 10, issue 1, 109-115. All-optical fluorescence image recovery using modulated stimulated emission depletion. Fan, Chaoyang; Hsiang, Jung-Cheng; Jablonski, Amy E.; Dickson, Robert M. Chemical Science. 2011, 2, issue 6, 1080-1085. Optically Enhanced, Near-IR, Silver Cluster Emission Altered by Single Base Changes in the DNA Template. Petty, Jeffrey T.; Fan, Chaoyang; Story, Sandra P.; Sengupta, Bidisha; Sartin, Matthew; Hsiang, Jung-Cheng; Perry, Joseph W.; Dickson, Robert M. The Journal of Physical Chemistry B. 2011, 115, issue 24, 7996-8003. Transfection of living HeLa cells with fluorescent poly-cytosine encapsulated Ag nanoclusters. Antoku, Yasuko; Hotta, Jun-ichi; Mizuno, Hideaki; Dickson, Robert M.; Hofkens, Johan; Vosch, Tom Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences. 2010, 9, issue 5, 716-721. Correlated single quantum dot blinking and interfacial electron transfer dynamics. Jin, Shengye; Hsiang, Jung-Cheng; Zhu, Haiming; Song, Nianhui; Dickson, Robert M.; Lian, Tianquan Chemical Science. 2010, 1, issue 4, 519-526. DNA Encapsulation of 10 Silver Atoms Producing a Bright, Modulatable, Near-Infrared-Emitting Cluster. Petty, Jeffrey T.; Fan, Chaoyang; Story, Sandra P.; Sengupta, Bidisha; Iyer, Ashlee St John; Prudowsky, Zachary; Dickson, Robert M. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. 2010, 1, issue 17, 2524-2529. Synchronously Amplified Fluorescence Image Recovery (SAFIRe). Richards, Chris I.; Hsiang, Jung-Cheng; Dickson, Robert M. The Journal of Physical Chemistry B. 2010, 114, issue 1, 660-665. FRET-Enabled Optical Modulation for High Sensitivity Fluorescence Imaging. Richards, Chris I.; Hsiang, Jung-Cheng; Khalil, Andrew M.; Hull, Nathan P.; Dickson, Robert M. The Journal of the American Chemical Society. 2010, 132, issue 18, 6318-6323. Hidden Markov Analysis of Short Single Molecule Intensity Trajectories. Jung, Soonkyo; Dickson, Robert M. The Journal of Physical Chemistry B. 2009, 113, issue 42, 13886-13890. Three-dimensional Flow Mapping in Microfluidic Channels with Widefield Cross-correlation Microscopy. Nicovich, Philip R.; Dickson, Robert M. ISRAEL JOURNAL OF CHEMISTRY. 2009, 49, issue 3-4, 293-301. Electron Transfer-Induced Blinking in Ag Nanodot Fluorescence. Patel, Sandeep A.; Cozzuol, Matteo; Hales, Joel M.; Richards, Chris I.; Sartin, Matthew; Hsiang, Jung-Cheng; Vosch, Tom; Perry, Joseph W.; Dickson, Robert M. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C. 2009, 113, issue 47, 20,264-20,270.