“…Single molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS) has proven to be a powerful tool to investigate the properties of individual proteins, including mechanical stability [ 1 ], ligand-binding [ 2 ] and protein folding [ 3 , 4 ]. The three most commonly used methods are optical tweezers [ 4 , 5 ] (OT), atomic force microscopy [ 6 , 7 ] (AFM), and magnetic tweezers [ 8 , 9 ] (MT), which are able to measure forces in the piconewton range. While each method has its own features and limitations [ 10 ], it is typically required that the molecule under study is attached to a probe, i.e., an optically trapped bead, a tip of the AFM cantilever or a magnetic bead ( Figure 1 ).…”