DAVID NIELD 12 JANUARY 2022
Scientists have built the tiniest antenna ever made – just five nanometers in length. Unlike its much larger counterparts we're all familiar with, this minuscule thing isn't made to transmit radio waves, but to glean the secrets of ever-changing proteins.
"Like a two-way radio that can both receive and transmit radio waves, the fluorescent nanoantenna receives light in one color, or wavelength, and depending on the protein movement it senses, then transmits light back in another color, which we can detect," says chemist Alexis Vallée-Bélisle, from the Université de Montréal (UdeM) in Canada.
Specifically, the job of the antenna is to measure the structural changes in proteins over time. Proteins are large, complex molecules that carry out all kinds of essential tasks in the body, from supporting the immune system to regulating the function of organs.