PicoQuant Celebrates 2014 Chemistry Nobel Prize Winners

Rainer Erdmann, Managing Director at PicoQuant co-chaired a special plenary session to celebrate Nobel Prize winners Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and W.E. Moerner, who received the coveted Nobel Prize in Chemistry last year for their revolutionary work in super-resolution fluorescence microscopy.

Approximately 1500 Photonics West attendees came along to the event which was held at Moscone Center in San Francisco on February 8, 2015. This breakthrough research has brought optical microscopy into the frontiers of nano dimension, enabling researchers to view details of biological processes and structures which were not possible in the past.

Co-chairs Rainer Erdmann and Ammasi Periasamy from the University of Virginia started the plenary session with the introductions of the Nobel Prize laureates. According to them, they were excited about organizing this special event and had exchanged around 50 emails to prepare and celebrate this Nobel night.

After giving a humanized introduction of W.E. Moerner, Rainer Erdmann handed over the SPIE award which honors Moerner for his work in STED microscopy.

A video message was received from Nobel Prize laureate Hell as he was not able to personally attend this event.. He honored his fellows' enthusiasm towards their work and highlighted the significance of pursuing one's ideas and concepts even if they appear impossible to achieve.

Moerner and Betzig, on their part, provided an insight into their research work and described their ideas regarding the potential of super-resolution fluorescence microscopy.

This was followed by a question and answer session, where the audience had a close and informal discussion with the Nobel Prize laureates.

According to the attendees, meeting this year's Nobel Prize winners was 'a once in your life' experience which has also inspired them to use super-resolution microscopy in their forthcoming research work to resolve critical biological questions.