The Optical Tweezers Facility (OTFX) houses a LUMICKS C-Trap for single-molecule trapping, manipulation, and visualization. The instrument combines five-channel microfluidics with four laser traps and three-color fluorescence microscopy, allowing researchers to build biochemical and biophysical experiments step by step. The capabilities of the Q-Trap are broad, enabling the real-time observation and analysis of protein-protein and protein-nucleic acid interactions, liquid-liquid phase separation, protein folding and conformational changes, cell mechanics and response, and cellular structure and transport. Force information, bead-to-bead distance, and fluorescence data are collected simultaneously and correlatively using a custom software interface to control and automate experiments.

Training and equipment reservations
Instrument time can be reserved on iLab. Please note that Laser Safety Training is mandatory prior to training on the C-Trap.

Grant information
The C-Trap was purchased using federal funds from NIH grant S10OD032191. All publications including data collected on the C-Trap must cite the grant.