Exploiting the dual nature of light

Drug Discovery & Development of Innovative Therapeutics conference, which was held in Boston, showcases a novel concept that exploits the dual nature of light as a particle and a wave to solve the problems regarding a receptor's activity. Light's agonist nature can be helpful for G protein-coupled receptors that could be important when screening for potential new drugs. The studies have focused on the results when cells are exposed to visible light, and that the use of the Ultraviolet ratiometric dye can help to easily read the calcium mobilization independent of stimulation of cells. Kelly J. Cassutt and engineers at Hamamatsu Corporation have addressed the challenge of the inability to screen a cell line because of light activation by developing that can run on the company's FDSS6000 imaging-based plate reader. The system comprises a CCD camera-based fluorescence sensor and a photon-counting luminescence sensor.