Harvard University - Zhuang Reserach Lab

The Zhuang research lab works on the forefront of single-molecule biology and bioimaging, developing and applying advanced optical imaging techniques to study the behavior of individual biological molecules and molecular assemblies in vitro and in live cells. Students and postdoctoral fellows in the Zhuang lab apply their diverse backgrounds in chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering to develop new imaging probes and methods and applying these tools to study a variety of interesting biological systems. Our current research is focused on three major directions: (1) Developing super-resolution optical microscopy that allows cell and tissue imaging with nanoscopic scale resolution and applying this technology to cell biology and neurobiology, (2) investigating how biomolecules function, especially how proteins and nucleic acids interact, using single-molecule fluorescence imaging and spectroscopy; (3) Investigating how viruses and cells interact using imaging techniques with high spatiotemporal resolution.