Meeting review: a summary of the Label-Free Summit.

'All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.' Leonardo da Vinci Scientific progress is often enabled by the development of new tools and technologies that have given us new ways of perceiving the world. In the early days of our science, optical microscopy gave us the ability to observe cells for the first time and opened the new world of cell biology.

Evaluation of dynamic mass redistribution technology for pharmacological studies of recombinant and endogenously expressed g protein-coupled receptors.

The Epic cell assay technology (Corning Inc., Corning, NY) uses a resonant waveguide grating optical biosensor to measure cellular response to ligands manifested through dynamic mass redistribution (DMR) of cellular contents. The DMR measurement is a noninvasive, label-free assay that can be used to assess the pharmacological properties of compounds.