Comics as a communication tool
Comics are in vogue as a contemporary, easy-to-produce and versatile medium. Just a few images can be the first step in breaking down inhibitions about approaching difficult content. The second step is to deepen the subject matter once attention has been generated. The emotional level plays an important role in comics. If you succeed in anchoring scientific information through emotions and humor, you can open up a path to sustainable knowledge transfer.
Fluorescence - a way to make the smallest structures visible
Fluorescence is an important tool in biophysics and other molecular sciences, as it can be used to visualize the smallest cellular components such as proteins.
Light is spontaneously emitted by the fluorescent molecule after it has been illuminated (also expressed as "excited") by a light source and has absorbed the light.
As a rule, the photons of the emitted light have less energy than those absorbed. This shifts the wavelength. Blue light becomes green, yellow light becomes red. This is known as the Stokes shift.
In biophysics, for example, we can use it to perform single-molecule fluorescence microscopy. This means that we can make individual molecules visible.
Who or what is FRET?
FRET is an abbreviation of "Fluorescence (or Förster) Resonance Energy Transfer".
It means that energy can be transferred from one light-sensitive dye to the next if the two are very close to each other. What does this mean?
If the emission wavelength of one fluorescent dye is the same as the excitation wavelength of the other, the latter is excited and begins to glow. The emitter is also referred to as the "donor" and the receiver as the "acceptor".
Many proteins work together, e.g. when diseases develop. This needs to be proven in order to develop drugs. FRET can be used to prove that two proteins come very close to each other, i.e. interact.
This does not yet prove that they actually fulfill common tasks. There are further tests for that. But at least the first important piece of the puzzle in the study of proteins has been found.