News From the Director - Spring 2009
Posted in: From the Director, News Spring 2009 | Comments Off
Bill Granath - EM Facility Director
Welcome to the first issue of our newsletter! Lots of new and exciting events are happening in the Electron Microscopy (EM) Facility and we will be posting them in this quarterly publication. As many of you know, the EM Facility was partially supported by the Montana INBRE (Idea Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence) which is funded by the National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health. We are delighted to once again be part of the next round of the Montana INBRE (INBRE II) which began its first year of 5 years of funding on May 1, 2009. As many of you know, what makes our facility unique is that the electron microscopes can be accessed remotely from a user’s desktop computer. Therefore, electron microscopy can be done in the classroom or in the comfort of a researcher’s office. For a further description of this remote access feature (”EM Anywhere”) please see the “Services” page on our website.
Throughout the coming years we hope to increase our collaborations with K-12 teachers, so if you are interested in this exciting program please contact me, or the Associate Director of the lab, Dr. Jim Driver . We are also producing interactive microscopy demonstrations designed to give perspective on size and scale. We hope these will be informative and that teachers will be able to use them in their classroom. Some of these demonstrations have been completed and are available on our website; more will be added in the future. Please give us your feedback and recommendations for samples you would like to see included. To view the current selection of demonstrations, visit our website and click on the “Imagery” tab where you can access our virtual microscope.
Also on the horizon is the possibility of a new EM Facility. If successful, current funding attempts would complete a spacious laboratory in the basement of the new Integrative Sciences Building on the campus of the University of Montana - Missoula. The new lab would triple our space and allow for more hands-on demonstrations and workshops.
Finally, if we can help you out in the classroom or with your research project, or if you just want to get a little more information about what we do (and what we may be able to do for you), please contact me or Jim Driver. I hope you all have a wonderful and productive summer!
Sincerely,
Bill
EMTRIX @ May 21, 2009
Virtual Microscopy: See What Your Eyes Have Been Missing
Posted in: News Spring 2009, Virtual Microscopy | Comments Off
Mold as seen using virtual microscopy
The main purpose of the virtual microscope is to allow the user to scan through increasingly magnified images of a common object or a disease causing microbe or substance. You begin with an image taken at the lowest magnification necessary to visualize it with the naked eye and increase the magnification in discrete steps to show the complexity of the objects at higher magnifications. Our hope is to help students and the public understand the scale differences between the world visible by the unaided eye and the hidden world that can only be seen using complex technologies.
One of The goals of University of Montana’s Electron Microscopy Facility is to help students and the public gain a better understanding of the micro-world that exists beyond the ability of the naked eye to see. The local and national media bombard us daily with items on diseases caused by viruses, bacteria, parasites, and sometimes even our own cells. Yet how many of us understand the size and scale relationships between what we can see with our unassisted eyes and what is visible only through the use of the most powerful microscopes? Our facility has developed a way to view images of objects from the structures visible to the naked eye down to those visible only at the tiniest scale - the nanometer scale! How small is that?
EMTRIX @ May 21, 2009
Electron Microscopy in the Classroom
Posted in: Happening Around the Lab, News Spring 2009 | Comments Off
Diatomaceous Earth Magnified 2,500 times
For Spring semester 2009 The Electron Microscopy Facility collaborated with Prof. Erick Greene in a two week electron microscopy lab module. Our purpose was to allow students to observe biological structures beyond what is visible to the naked eye or through a light microscope. To do this we used the transmission and scanning electron microscopes in our facility to provide images of macrophages, pollen, and diatomaceous earth. Arriving in small groups the 300 lab students got a tour of the facility and observed various images in the TEM and SEM. During the second week we used our remote access capability to show the individual lab sections images of the samples they had prepared. This allowed them to compare views of diatomaceous earth and pollen taken with a dissecting microscope and a light microscope with images at much higher resolution and magnification from the facility’s SEM. Our remote access function showed the classes live images from the SEM streamed over the internet while the SEM’s operator, Jim Driver, provided commentary about the structures observed.
EMTRIX @ May 21, 2009
Seeking Feedback
Posted in: News Spring 2009, Uncategorized | Comments Off
If you are a current or former user of the EM Facility please take a moment to fill out our brief on-line survey.
If you have used the virtual microscopy demonstrations, we would appreciate your feedback on this specific feature by taking another short survey.
If you have additional comments not addressed in the surveys please feel free to drop us a line. We are constantly trying to improve our services, so your input is very important to us.
EMTRIX @ May 21, 2009
Microscopy Workshops at Gifted Education Conference for Kids
Posted in: Happening Around the Lab, News Spring 2009 | Comments Off
The Missoula County Public School’s Gifted and Talented Program is holding a Gifted Education Conference for Kids at The University of Montana on May 19, 2009. The EM Facility will be providing 2 90-minute workshops entitled “Discover What Your Eyes Have Been Missing” for the conference. Each workshop will have a 60 minute hands-on session where the students will observe common objects, attempt to identify them using hand lenses and light microscopes, answer questions about the objects, and see SEM images of the objects at high resolution and magnification. Each group will then visit the EM facility to see the electron microscopes in action. Although it may be a tight fit with 12 students in each group we have found that showing them the actual instruments can help kids understand the technology behind the images on the screen.
EMTRIX @ May 21, 2009
Hellgate High Students Examine Asbestos
Posted in: Happening Around the Lab, News Spring 2009 | Comments Off
On April 22nd the EM facility provided a remote access session for Melissa Henthorn’s biology class at Missoula’s Hellgate High School. Will Skyrud, a student in her class had been interning with the Dr. Tony Ward and Carolyn Hester from the Center for Environmental Health Sciences. Dr. Ward’s lab is studying asbestos from the Libby, MT vermiculite mine. Will was engaged in isolation and identification of asbestos fractions from the mine tailings. He spent time in the EM facility training on use of the electron microscopes and using the SEM to characterize size fractions of Libby asbestos.
We also collaborated with students in Melissa Henthorn’s class in collection and imaging of airborne particulates from inside the classroom and at a site outside the University of Montana. During the remote session the class was able to see the types and sizes of particles collected at the sites through the scanning electron microscope. Will Skyrud and Jim Driver provided a running commentary comparing the larger particles collected such as pollen grains to the particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (PM 2.5). It is PM 2.5 that has been linked to lung dysfunction and certain chronic diseases such as asthma. Our purpose was to allow students to see the difference between larger particulate matter types usually screened from the lung and the smaller particles capable of penetrating deep into the lung.
EMTRIX @ May 21, 2009