A physicist from the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Campus, Stephanie Meyer has been involved in developing a sophisticated microscope with high resolution that enables to view innermost cell functioning. This microscope will be a helpful tool in neuroscience research.
The project was initiated with funds received from the National Institutes of Health and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The research team at CU Denver planned to design its own Stimulated Emission Depletion (STED) microscope after assessing a commercial microscope design. Stephanie started her work on the microscope in the month of May.
It is possible to reach very high resolutions with electron microscopes, but the fact is that cells must not be alive. Through STED, cell functioning can be observed and intricate cells can be viewed and examined at high resolution when the cells are alive. STED enables viewing of interaction of proteins, thereby enabling discovery of the inner functioning of cells. Moreover, it is not necessary to slice the cell very thin as required with the electron microscope.
The STED microscope utilizes lasers to reach high precision and to provide extreme clarity. Meyer stated that ordinary microscopes with low levels of resolution provide very blurred view when compared to STED. This is because diffraction of light restricts the laser beam size that is being focused on the cell. The STED microscope utilizes a unique laser beam shaped like a donut and combines it with an excited laser beam so as to enable focusing of light over a small area. The developing of the microscope may take a few more months.
Source: http://www.ucdenver.edu/