Tracking particles at the micro or nanoscale is inherently difficult due to the complexity of the systems studied, as well as the technical challenges: a blend of instrument design, photonics, modeling, and imaging.
The Welsher Lab at Duke University, seeking to understand how viruses navigate the extracellular space, recently developed a real-time 4D microscopy method for single particle tracking when previous techniques proved incapable of supporting the observations they required.