Nobel awarded for fluorescent jellyfish protein Oct 8, 2008
He isolated a few precious grams of luminescent liquid from 10,000 jellyfish, which led to the discovery that its source was GFP, a so-called chromophore -- a chemical group that absorbs and emits light. Shimomoura was the third Japanese citizen to win a Nobel this year, after Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa won the Physics Prize Tuesday along with Japanese-born American Yoichiro Nambu for groundbreaking theoretical work in fundamental particles. (Yahoo News -- Top Stories)
Spicing up new fluorescent proteins Mar 8, 2008
To gain insight into the molecular basis for the blue-shifted fluorescence emission we undertook a mutagenesis-based study of residues in the immediate environment of the chromophore ... Our results demonstrate that the protein-chromophore interactions responsible for blue shifting the absorbance and emission maxima of mTFP1 operate independently of the chromophore structure ... Indeed we have identified the substitutions His163Met and Thr73Ala that abolish or disrupt the interactions of these... (BioMed Central)
Inexpensive Solar Cells Made More Efficient With New Sensitizers Mar 2, 2008
In this case the efficiency of the dye as a sensitizer is not only dependent on its chromophore, but also on its interfacial properties. So using a dye with an additional hydrocarbon chain has improved the performance by retarding the back electron reaction. (Science Daily)
Utra-fast Fibre Lasers, Dopey Photons ... What's Next? Jan 4, 2008
For example, in the case of medical imaging you can select the wavelength you need from the broadband spectrum to detect a specific type of chromophore attached to a cancer cell. Such new applications are not the only benefit of ultra-fast fibre lasers. (Science Daily)
Jet Lag, Circadian Clocks Explained May 20, 2007
The researchers studied a protein called vivid, which contains a chromophore -- a light-absorbing molecule. The chromophore captures a photon or particle of light, and the captured energy from the light triggers a series of interactions that ultimately lead to conformational changes on the surface of the vivid protein. (Science Daily)
When It Comes to Photosynthesis, Plants Perform Quantum Computation Apr 17, 2007
ADVERTISEMENT (article continues below) In other words, plants are employing the basic principles of quantum mechanics to transfer energy from chromophore (photosynthetic molecule) to chromophore until it reaches the so-called reaction center where photosynthesis, as it is classically defined, takes place ... "[The protein structure] of the plant has to be tuned to allow transfer among chromophores but not to allow transfers into [heat]," Engel says. (Scientific American)
Structural basis for photoswitching in fluorescent proteins brought into focus Apr 11, 2007
However, when the chromophore (a group of atoms and electrons forming part of an molecule) absorbs ultraviolet light, it occasionally ionizes and become negatively charged. This causes the rings to flip back into the fluorescent state. (EurekAlert!)
Quantum confinement ups optical-film efficiency Jan 4, 2007
Now researchers in China and Belgium have answered the academics' call with an organic "chromophore" material that is said to be 50 percent more sensitive than anything previously tested. Chromophores have been prime candidates for organic dye-sensitized solar cells, since they emit electrons when light is shone on them ... But the new chromophore molecular configuration incorporates quantum confinement into each cell, greatly increasing chromophore efficiency. (EETimes)
