Matt gives a guided tour of an optical trap in his lab.

Matt Lang gives high school students advice on pursuing science as a career.

Matt talks about some of the applications of optical traps.

Peter explains how a postdoc term ends.

Peter explains the goal of this section of the project.

Peter explains the work environment in Matt Lang's lab.

Ricardo answers the unanswerable.

Peter answers the unanswerable.

Ricardo talks about his future plans.

Ricardo talks about where this project is going, post-publication.

Peter discusses his first steps in a scientific career path.

Matt Lang describes his background, how he got interested in science, and how he came to MIT.

Jorge explains how one selects a journal that is fitting to one's research.

Jorge talks about his MIT experience.

Peter describes how frequently his experiments are successful and how he proceeds after gathering positive data.

Jorge discusses how other scientists may repeat their research.

Ricardo explains how the Equipartition Theorem can be used to determine the strength of an optical trap.

Matt Lang answers the unanswerable.

Peter shoots down the question.

Jorge talks about his previous experiences.

Matt Lang talks about his mentors.

Matt explains how (and why) his lab uses nail polish.

Ricardo discusses how they determined how often the optical trap laser needs to be turned on and off.

Seventeen time-shared optical traps hold seventeen E. Coli cells in a familiar shape... David Appleyard, graduate student in the Lang Group, explains what "time-sharing" means in the world of optical traps: "My favorite way to describe it is to use the analogy of someone juggling using those plates which you balance on the end of a stick by spinning them real fast. If a juggler wants to keep 3 plates balanced, he spins each one individually, and then continuously returns to each plate individually to give it a little extra push to keep its' speed and balance. Same idea with the trap. We have one laser beam which is alternated between all of the objects that we want to keep in position. As long as the laser beam returns to each object before the object has had a moment to diffuse away, the object will stay in position. We just cycle the laser between all the positions as fast as possible (with our instrument, this is about 1000 Hz - and for 5 or 6 objects, that gives about 200 times per second)."

This trap is unusual because the manipulation is being done through silicon rather than a glass slide.

E. Coli bacteria are stuck to a slide, spinning around. An optical trap is turned on and is used to halt the rotation of a single E. Coli cell.

A twenty-micron square particle is rotated with four optical traps.

Peter discusses his educational and work experience.

Matt talks about the pros and cons of working a field like Biological Engineering?

Ricardo talks about his background, how he got to MIT, and whether he likes it here.

Jorge discusses the combined measurement results.

Matt Lang describes why the key innovation is important.

Here, Matt Lang explains the key innovation that allowed his group to combine fluorescence and force measurements.

Ricardo discusses the major stumbling block when it came to combining the optical trapping and fluorescence measurement techniques.

Jorge talks about the critiques and reviews of research papers.

Jorge discusses how they organized their data and presented it in the paper.

Ricardo explains that trap stiffness increases with both laser power and modulation frequency.

Jorge discusses the academic community's interest in their research.

Jorge gives some wisdom to students interested in science and engineering.

Jorge talks about life after MIT.

Peter discusses his future career goals.

Peter explains how he deals with failure in the laboratory.

Peter discusses his routine.

Ricardo explains photobleaching.

Peter explains the different roles of a PhD candidate and a postdoc.

Jorge explains how the DNA tether experiment was performed.

Ricardo explains each person's role in the project.

Jorge discusses his methods for taking on new research problems.

Jorge explains how engineering can be applied to biological sciences.

Matt explains why he uses an optical trap (as opposed to just building really small metal tweezers).

Peter explains why they decided to test Cy3.

Peter explains why he decided to return to MIT and the Boston area.

Peter explains the significance of their research project.

Peter explains the reasoning behind presenting only the Cy3 data.