Abstract
The last thirty years of progress of atomic force microscopy (AFM) applied to living matter is reviewed
 with a focus on potential uses in drug discovery or screening of patient samples. AFM-based technologies
 are still at Proof of Concept level - or below, however, they are particularly promising for i) live imaging
 of unlabeled membrane proteins and ii) nanomechanical screening of biological samples, e.g. cancer
 biopsies.
Highlights
The progress of science is usually a graded process, but once in a while it shows discontinuities due to some disruptive revolutions
Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) is an enabling technology still under development 2.1 AFM is a special kind of microscope
The word microscope derives from the Greek words mikros - “small” - and skopein - “to look”
Summary
The progress of science is usually a graded process, but once in a while it shows discontinuities due to some disruptive revolutions. AFM can be used to scan a surface, to record the surface topology of a sample (Figure 4a) These images can be collected in the so called ‘contact mode’ i.e. when the tip literally touches the surface moving laterally like in Figure 1; but the images can be generated in the so called ‘non-contact’ mode or in ‘intermittent contact’ mode. In these cases, the tip, in addition to a lateral movement, is forced to oscillate in the vertical direction.
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