Ralf Jungmann is interested in processes that take place within unbelievably tiny spatial 

dimensions. Jungmann holds a professorship in experimental physics at Ludwig-Maximili

ans-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich, and heads a research group in molecular imaging and 

bionanotechnology at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry (Martinsried), and focuses

 on extending the capabilities of optical microscopy. His goal is to visualize the molecular 

interactions that take place within individual cells. In order to monitor the protein networks 

involved in such processes, he uses short DNA strands covalently attached to various 

fluorescence markers as probes to locate target proteins bearing complementary DNA tags.

 By exploiting the sequence specificity and versatility of DNA hybridization, it is possible to im

age the distributions of large numbers of molecules in single cells at super-resolution. The 

combination of DNA sequences with different fluorescent compounds explains why the techn

ique bears the name DNA-PAINT.