HOW do you colour-code a whole bunch of different objects using only one colour? It sounds impossible, but researchers hoping to tag cells with combinations of fluorescent dyes have done just that.
They used a form of “molecular computing” that means similar dyes can be distinguished and so can be combined in myriad unique ways, allowing researchers to tag every cell in a huge population with a different label. The tags could also help nanotechnologists keep track of thousands of nano-devices.
To create the tags, chemist A. Prasanna de Silva at Queen’s University, Belfast, UK, attached a variety of fluorescent…
