Investigating pore-forming peptides using the atomic force microscope

In my projects, I used the Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) to image the effects of pore-forming peptides and I used the Focused Ion Beam (FIB) to modify AFM cantilevers to increase the precision of force spectroscopy measurements. ... Another way to investigate peptide-lipid interactions is to perform force spectroscopy experiments using the AFM. In order to lower drift and increase force precision, I used a FIB to modify commercially available AFM cantilevers. By reducing the cross sectional area of the cantilever, the hydrodynamic drag was reduced, thus increasing the force precision. Removing most of the gold coating on the cantilever increased the temporal stability. These modified cantilevers have already been put to use in the lab to measure peptide-lipid interactions.