The glow of fluorescent probes has become a critical lighthouse in biomedicine, serving an essential role in many diagnostic, forensic, pharmaceutical, and genomic screening tests. Currently available tests for early detection of HIV, for example, use a probe molecule-a specific protein combined with a light-emitting molecule-that glows when it encounters the RNA of HIV. The glow is detectable by an optical sensor. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have developed a simple way to amplify these signals from the molecular world.

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