Observing the dynamic behaviour and interactions of single biomolecules is a long-standing  goal to facilitate bio-medical research including cancer research, the analysis of peptides as building block of proteins (e.g. in bacteria or viruses) or synthetic biology. However, the low forces and fast timescales of the fundamental inter-molecular events of interest generally lie far outside the operational range of commercial Atomic Force Microscopes (AFM).

Bristol’s Vertically Oriented Probe (VOP) micro-scope represents a breakthrough in both AFM instrumentation and the study of biomolecules, and can overcome the disadvantages of AFM. The development of a novel high-speed version of the VOP micro-scope is currently being carried out by the Mechanical Engineering and the Physics Departments of the University of Bristol together with the University of Exeter. This talk will detail some of the novel engineering approaches for this ground-breaking micro-scope.