METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CHARACTERISING MOLECULES

摘要

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for characterising molecules. In particular, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus of determining force-extension characteristics of a molecule, a method and apparatus of determining an activation energy of a molecule or bound molecular pair, and a method and apparatus of determining a rates of binding and of unbinding of a molecule. In each of the methods, a transduced signal from an oscillating sensor is used to determine the molecular characteristics of interest. The output of the sensor is dependent upon interactions of the molecules of interest attached to microbeads, which are bound to the surface of the sensor through molecular bindings such as ligand- receptor bindings or covalent bonds.