Practical applications of atomic force microscopy in biomedicine
Nicola Galvanetto
Affiliations
Nicola Galvanetto
International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), via Bonomea 265, Trieste 34136, Italy; Department of Biochemistry and Department of Physics, University of Zurich, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.
The last thirty years of progress of atomic force microscopy (AFM) applied to living matter is reviewed with a focus on potential uses in drug discovery or screening of patient samples. AFM-based technologies are still at Proof of Concept level - or below, however, they are particularly promising for i) live imaging of unlabeled membrane proteins and ii) nanomechanical screening of biological samples, e.g. cancer biopsies.
