Murugappan Muthukumar is co-author of the cover story in the August 2015 issue of Physics Today on single-molecule sensing with nanopores.

Like thread through the eye of a needle, DNA, protein, and other chain-like biomolecules can be guided by electric fields through pores just nanometers across. Known as translocation, that process—illustrated here—has emerged as a versatile biophysics technique. Scientists are using it for DNA sequencing, protein-folding experiments, single-molecule detection, and more.