User: Anna Barsukova, a graduate student in the lab of Michael Forte, a cell biologist at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland.
Project: Imaging calcium flux in mitochondria of primary neurons in response to cellular stress, a key apoptotic mechanism in neurodegenerative disease.
Problem: Barsukova needed a fast system (20 to 100 msec timeframe) with superior spatial resolution for imaging a subcellular structure. She also needed to switch easily between different light filters to track two fluorescent probes simultaneously.
Solution: Unlike confocal and two-photon microscopes, which direct light to a localized area within a focal plane, wide-field systems bathe the entire sample in light, and work well for imaging a sample about 10 µm thick. Because she studies a single layer of cultured cells, Barsukova could not justify the expense of a confocal or a two-photon microscope, which would be more suited to 3D reconstruction in the range of ...
